


Infinity War

by Lansfics7



Series: I Got You First [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Avengers Family, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Brave Peter, Character Death, Crying, Everyone Needs A Hug, Everything Hurts, Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts, Great lines, Hurt/Comfort, I Made Myself Cry, I'm crying, Infinity War hurts, Irondad, Just Keep Fighting, Main character deaths, Movie Quotation(s), Must Read, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Part 2, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Precious Peter Parker, Sad, Sad Ending, Spoilers, Steve Rogers Feels, Tony Feels, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Unhappy Ending, Wanda Maximoff Needs a Hug, best movie ever, never give up, oof, spiderson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-27 02:53:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 29,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17758415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lansfics7/pseuds/Lansfics7
Summary: Infinity War! Obviously all rights go to Marvel and any character, lines, and plot points that are in the movie I obviously don't own. I just love to write them out and add a bit of stuff of my own when the 'camera' is on someone else during the movie! Since I changed up the previous events a bit, some things will also change.I suggest reading I Got You First (since this is the second book) if you haven't already.Enjoy! And I already apologize profusely for the ending because you all know what happens. :(





	1. I know what it's like to lose

**Author's Note:**

> Snippets from beginning to right about when Peter and Tony stow away on the ship.  
> Enjoy this first chapter! Let me know what you think in the comments!

“I know what it's like to lose. To feel so desperately that you're right, yet to fail nonetheless.”  
Loki watches as Thanos walks toward him, dragging Thor by his chestplate. He says nothing.  
“Frightening. Turns the legs to jelly. I ask you to what end? Dread it? Run from it? Destiny arrives all the same, and now it's here. Or should I say: I am.”  
He knew what Thanos wanted.  
The giant who had single handedly killed almost all of Loki’s people was challenging him. The Asgardian race was all but demolished, except for a small band including Valkyrie who had escaped. But now he and Thor were here, facing the mad Titan by themselves. And Thor’s head was being gripped by Thanos’ large hand, so he wasn’t much help.  
Loki knew what Thanos was capable of. He already had the gauntlet with the power stone, which means he had obliterated Zandar. Loki had been doing his bidding in New York, and he knew the Titan didn’t play games. This was no game. This was a path that only led to ashes and blood. He knew Thanos knew Loki had it: the Tesseract. 

...

“The Tesseract,” Thanos demanded. Loki’s eyes flicked from Thor and then back to the Titan.  
“Or your brother’s head,” Thanos said in his low evil voice, raising the hand with the Gauntlet toward Thor’s skull, the purple stone gleaming. Thano’s grip tightened on Thor who’s one eye widened and he struggled, letting out grunts of pain.  
“I assume you have a preference?” Thanos said, almost amused.  
Loki forced his face to remain stone cold and he gave Thor a look of forced hate, “Oh I do. Kill away.” He was calling Thanos’ bluff, although he was afraid it would backfire.  
Which it did.  
Thanos grinned, an unsettling smile that said, You want to play that game? I’ll play it too. He closed his fist and dug the Power stone into Thor’s head, crushing the side of his skull.  
Loki watched, waiting for Thor to snap out of it and blast Thanos, or throw him across the room, but it never happened. Thor roared in agony, and his yells of pain echoed in Loki’s ears. With each scream Loki’s cold expression weakened, and he flinched in pain himself as Thanos pushed the stone further, it’s purple energy coursing through Thor’s skull. The screams got louder, and Thanos watched him with taunting eyes, almost waiting for him to break. Loki watched in horror, starting to tremble at the pain he was causing his brother. And for what?  
He knew Thanos would get the Tesseract eventually. Thanos was just waiting. Playing. Trying to beat Loki at his own game.  
He remembered a time when he would have gladly let Thor die, but now, after everything they had been through, he couldn’t let his brother die at his hand. He couldn’t let him die, period. And he would not allow Thanos to be the one to do it. Loki couldn’t take his brother’s suffering anymore. He squeezed his eyes shut, took a breath, and then something broke inside him. Anger heated up in his chest and his eyes flashed as they snapped open.  
“Alright, STOP!”  
Thor gasps, gulping down air and taking raspy breaths as Thanos lowers his hand, the purple stone’s glow fading out.  
Thor barely makes out, “We don’t have the tesseract. It was destroyed on Asgard.”  
Thanos knows better, and he’s staring at Loki, waiting for him to hold up his end of the bargain. Loki feels deflated but he knows what he has to do. He lowers his head, sighs, and summons the tesseract out of thin air, looking at Thor guiltily.  
“You really are the worst brother,” Thor says, coughing up blood, but Loki knows he doesn’t mean it. At least, he doesn’t think he means it.  
Loki’s had a plan for a while now. He’s currently stalling. He looked right at Thor.  
“I assure you brother, the sun will shine on us again.” It was the closest thing he could get to telling him not to mourn him, because Loki knew what he was doing.  
“Your optimism is misplaced, Asgardian,” Thanos says, lumbering forward to take the Tesseract out of his hands  
Loki pulls the tesseract away from Thano’s hand, not in a threatening way, just as a way that showed cockiness. He smiles and shakes his head, “For one thing, I’m not Asgardian. And for another…”  
The titan’s face contorts into a frown.  
Loki smirks, “We have a hulk.”  
A roar comes from behind them and Loki throws the tesseract aside in haste to tackle his brother from the Titan’s loosened grip. He grabs Thor and they both fall to the ground as Banner, all big and green, attacks Thanos.  
“We have to help him-” Thor coughs up blood, holding the side of his head where the Power Stone had been used against him. Loki slowly helps his brother to his feet, and looks over his shoulder as Thanos catches the Hulk’s punches, which should be impossible, but isn’t. He hits the Hulk once in the neck and Banner staggers back, surprised and hurt.  
“No!” Loki hisses as Thor tries to stumble past him, “Thor we don’t have much time- I have to tell you-”  
“The tesseract, you took it!” Thor yells at him, gripping his arms.  
“Where is it, where is it?”  
Loki can’t believe this. He just saved his brother’s life, he doesn’t get a thank you, instead he gets reprimanded and ignored, while Loki is trying to tell Thor what he plans to do. He puts his hand out in front of his brother in a last ditch effort to stop him, “Thor please listen-”  
“Banner! We have to help Banner!” Thor insists.  
“Thor-” Loki says, his voice breaking, but Thor pushes past him and Loki can only watch as Thanos slams Hulk into the ground, and the green giant lays still, bloodied and defeated.  
Thor lunges at Thanos with a piece of metal, like an idiot, and it does nothing. Thanos kicks his brother in the chest and he goes flying, and Loki winces as he hits the ground. The Maw flicks out his fingers and pieces of metal clamp around Thor’s arms, legs, chest...encasing his entire body.  
“Let the dark magic...flow through me one last...time…”  
Loki hears a low groan from across the room and he turns towards the voice. Suddenly a brilliant and colorful light explodes in the room and the Hulk is picked up by the beam and carried out into the vastness of space. Loki peeks out from behind the rubble and sees Heimdall, his gold eyes visible even from where Loki’s standing, clutching the glowing sword. His gaze is on the titan who has walked over. To his horror, Thanos stands over to him, almost looking at him in pity.  
“That was a mistake,” the titan says softly, before he embeds the spear right into the center of the man’s chest.  
“NO!” Thor yells, and Loki balls his fists, trying to steady his breathing. Heimdall’s head dips and hits the ground, his clenched hands dropping the sword that caused his death. His body goes limp.  
“You’re going...to die...for that,” Thor snarls.  
Loki stays where he is, knowing what he has to do. He doesn’t have much time, but he needs to make it count. It can be simple, make the Titan think he’s won, but he hasn’t. Make him believe this is the endgame, but only live to fight another day. He looks back up from his hiding place.  
The Maw has picked up the tesseract and is kneeling in front of Thanos, “The universe, lies within your grasp.”  
Thanos grips the tesseract in his palm and tightens his fist, breaking the blue cube almost effortlessly. There’s an explosion of pale blue light and Thanos lets the remnants fall, shattered and in crumbs to the floor. All that’s left is the blue infinity stone that he moves slowly toward the Gauntlet. The Stone, like a magnet, flies to it’s spot and Thanos lets out a roar like yell as another blue blast shakes the ground. 

...

“Almighty Thanos...I, Loki, prince of Asgard…” Loki stops, and looks at Thor, “Odinson…” he trails off, the words threatening to choke his throat but Loki doesn’t let them. He returns his gaze to Thanos and says proudly, “the rightful king of the Jotunheim, God of Mischief-” a knife materializes in Loki’s hand, hidden by his arm, “do hereby pledge to you,” Loki bows slightly, gripping the knife in his hand, “my, undying, fidelity.”  
He sucks in a breath and launches his arm upward with the knife, straight for Thanos’ throat.  
And his arm is stopped, jerked, and frozen. Loki struggles, seeing the Gauntlet casting a blue glow on him, holding his shaking arm away from the titan’s flesh.  
Thanos looks down on him as Loki grits his teeth trying to break away. Thanos grips his wrist and Loki lets out a hiss of pain, letting the knife clatter to the floor as his hand opens against his will.  
“Undying?” Thanos asks. “You should choose your words more carefully.”  
His hand moves to Loki’s throat before he can suck in a breath and he’s lifted off his feet. Loki clutches at the hands around his throat, feeling his lungs burn, his mind panic, his legs kicking and flailing in an attempt to get the air he know he won’t. Thanos looks at Thor who’s breathing hard through his metal gag, his eyes filled with fear.  
Loki stops struggling because he knows it won’t do him any good. He feels the blood rushing to his head, his face turning red and then purple, and he knows his heart is shutting down, his lungs failing. He grips the metal hand that’s tightening around his windpipe and he glares at Thanos, hissing out with every last breath he has left, “You..will never be...a god.”  
His vision closes up and he chokes again. No air comes to his lungs that wither and just stop working. Thanos snarls and the fist encloses around his neck.  
Loki feels his neck crack, searing pain rushing through his body, but only for a second.  
At the same time relief floods through him of no longer needing to hold his breath, but only for a second. Because then Loki doesn’t feel anything at all. 

...

Loki wakes up, gasps for air, his hands immediately going to his throat. He realizes that he could breath- his lungs are still working and his vision spirals back to him. The world stops spinning and Loki is able to move. Valkyrie catches him as he launches himself off the floor and stumbles. She looks him in the eye after he’s slowed his breathing a bit and steadies him against the wall, “Hey! Easy. What happened?”  
“He’s going to Earth,” Loki says, shaking and gasping for air, “there are 2 stones there.” One of the remaining Asgardians hands him a bottle of liquid. Loki doesn’t care what it is, he just gulps it down.  
“He has the power stone and the space stone,” Loki says, still rubbing his throat.  
“2 stones,” someone mutters, “May the gods help us.”  
“He thinks...I’m dead. And so does Thor,” Loki says softly.  
“Thanos killed you?” Valkyrie says angrily.  
“He killed a clone,” Loki snaps, “But it was very real to him, and to Thor, and to me,” Loki rubbed his throat, almost feeling the metal hand still clasped firmly around it.  
There’s silence on the ship. No one knows what to say. This Titan had wiped out half their population, and his currently in possession of not one, but two infinity stones. They had a right to be scared. Besides, Thanos killing him, even if it wasn’t real, proved that the mad Titan didn’t mess around. He killed for fun, he killed for sport, and his corrupted mind only assured him that what he was doing was right. Wiping out half the universe to ultimately save them from a possible fate seemed so wrong...it was almost right. Loki had almost been on board with this plan of twistable genocide and he had suffered at the hands of that madman to the brink of insanity.  
Yet in Loki’s case, eventually, his eyes were opened. And in doing so, he found people that he really cared about, and vowed to never again go back to his old ways, unless in circumstances of trickery. As Loki looked around, he saw everyone staring at him, waiting for him to make the next move. These people, his people, looked up to him. He needed to lead them. Unfortunately, Loki needed to go toward the danger, and these innocent people, these men, women, and children didn’t deserve to die. And if Loki went where he needed to go, he’d be putting them in danger.  
The silence continues.  
Loki breaks it with a sigh and rubs his neck again.  
“Thor’s gonna kill me when he finds out.”  
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“Tell me his name again,” Tony says grimly.  
“Thanos,” Bruce says. “He’s a plague, Tony. He invades planets. He takes what he wants. He wipes out half the population. He sent Loki. The attack on New York: that’s him.”  
That hits a nerve in Tony and he frowns. That happened 6 years ago. And it hasn’t gone away for 6 years.  
“This is it,” Tony said grimly and got to his feet. He asks, “What’s our timeline?”  
“No telling. He has the Power and Space Stones. That already makes him the strongest creature in the whole universe,” Bruce was wringing his hands, “If he gets his hands on all six stones, Tony…” Bruce looked at him in fear and trailed off.  
The wizard spoke up, walking forward, “He could destroy life on a scale hitherto undreamt of.”  
Tony leaned on the nearest thing he could find, stretching out his calf. He shot the wizard a look, and laughed a bit, “Did you seriously just say ‘hitherto undreamt of’?”  
“Are you seriously leaning on the Cauldron of the Cosmos?” The wizard’s cape moved forward and smacked Tony’s arm off whatever he had been leaning on. Tony straightened, stumbling forward a bit before he regained his balance and whipped around to face the wizard, furious. The wizard seemed unphased.  
Tony said slowly, “I’m going to allow that.” Then he walked a bit, pacing, thinking before he turned around again, “If Thanos needs all six, why don’t we just, stick this one down the garbage disposal?”  
“No can do,” the wizard shook his head, “we swore an oath to protect the Time Stone with our lives.”  
Tony raised his eyebrows, “And I swore off dairy, but then Ben & Jerry’s named a flavor after me.”  
“Stark Raving Hazelnuts,” Strange said.  
“Not bad,” Tony shrugged.  
“A bit chalky,” Stange countered.  
“A Hunk of Hulk of burning Fudge is our favorite,” Wong interjects.  
“That’s a thing?” Bruce asks, shocked.  
“Whatever. Point is, things change,” Tony pries, raising his eyebrows.  
Dr. Strange doesn’t budge, “Our oath to protect the Time Stone cannot change. And this stone may be the best chance we have against Thanos.”  
Tony shrugs, “Yeah, so conversely, it may also be his best chance against us,” he points out.  
“Well, if we don’t do our jobs,” the doctor grumbles.  
“What is your job exactly,” Tony asks, rather annoyed, “besides making balloon animals?”  
“Protecting your reality, douchebag,” Dr. Strange shoots back.  
Tony glares at him, absolutely livid, ready to throw a punch, when Bruce steps in.  
“Okay guys,” he says angrily, “could we table this discussion right now? The fact is we have this stone. We know where it is. Vision is out there somewhere with the Mind Stone, and we have to find him now.”  
Tony’s face falls, “Yeah, that's the thing.”  
Bruce widens his eyes, as if Tony had just killed his cat or something, “What do you mean?”  
Tony had thought he and Cap were good. They were good. For a while. Then Ross had to screw things up, find something that Tony and Cap disagreed on and use it against him. Rather than break up the Avengers yet again, Cap and Tony agreed to just take a break and go their separate ways for a while. Cap had left him the phone again, for when they were ready to talk, or when something bad happened, but they had made sure to have everyone turn on their transponders and Cap and Tony shook hands before they left the compound. It wasn’t the best, but it was better than other possible scenarios that could have happened. Peter had been devastated.  
“Two weeks ago, Vision turned off his transponder. He's offline,” Tony tells Bruce.  
“What?” Bruce looks confused and mildly shocked.  
“Yeah,” Tony says, clearing his throat.  
“Tony, you lost another super-bot?” Bruce exclaims.  
Tony turns around and glares at him, “I didn’t lose him. He’s more than that. He’s...evolving,” Tony says. That’s a good way to put it. He has his theories. He’s pretty sure Vision isn’t the only one who turned off his transponder. But Wanda wouldn’t listen to him; she never really did. That’s why she took Cap’s side. Tony knew he couldn’t contact her. But someone could. Of course Bruce chose that time to ask the question Tony knew the answer to.  
“Who could find Vision then?”  
Tony sighs, “Probably Steve Rogers.”  
Bruce’s face lights up, like there’s some hope, and Tony wishes there was.  
“Oh great,” Doctor Strange mumbled.  
Tony shot him a look and sighed again.  
“Call him,” Bruce insists.  
“It's not that easy,” Tony says weakly. He realizes Bruce doesn’t know what happened for the past few years when he was off God knows where. Tony rubs his forehead and looks at Bruce who is pleading him for an answer, “God, we haven't caught up in a spell, have we?”  
“No,” Bruce says hesitantly.  
“The Avengers broke up. We were toast.” Tony starts off with that.  
Bruce is taken back by that and he splutters, “Broke up? Like a band? Like... Like the Beatles?”  
Tony ignores his reference and nods, “And then we got patched up, and everything was cool. But we think differently- Cap and I. Opposites didn’t attract and we had another argument, sides were taken, but not as bad, so to save us from fighting each other again, we kinda went our separate ways for a while. He and I had fallen out hard. This time wasn’t as bad. It was mutual. But right now, we’re...we’re not on speaking terms.”  
Bruce looks like he’s about to explode and he blinks, speaking to Tony like he’s a little kid who doesn’t want to do something, “Tony? Listen to me. Thor's gone. Thanos is coming. It doesn't matter who you're talking to or not.”  
Tony sighs. He’s right. Tony pulls out the flip phone that he’s been carrying around for the past few months for circumstances like this. He scoffs and mutters, “Flip phone,” with a small smile as he stares at the contacts.  
STEVE ROGERS  
He almost pushes the call button. Almost. And then he hears a rumble. He looks down at the floor, and then hears faint screaming from outside. 

...

The ground below him explodes up and Tony flails, being shot into the air. He throws himself off, stabilizing and jerking in the blue sky before diving back down. He skims the ground and shoots a car back that’s about to crash into Wong and Strange, hoping that will knock the Squidward off his feet but he simply raises his hand and the car is sliced in half.  
“Doc, you’ve got get that stone out of here now!” Tony yells.  
“It stays with me,” Strange insists.  
Tony nods, “Exactly, bye!” His thrusters fire up and he flies forward, dodging the lampposts and rocks the man throws at him. He doesn’t see the weird clamp thing that the giant, now on his feet, has launched forward until it’s too late. Tony puts up his hands, but it does no good and it hits him straight in the chest, knocking the wind out of him and blowing him backward, through a building, and across the street. Tony finally lands, tumbling, and ripping up the once beautiful grass at a park.  
"Ow, ow, ow," Tony hits a tree hard and that’s what stops him.  
Bruce is at his side in an instant, “Tony! You okay?”  
Tony looks up at him, his voice dripping with sarcasm, “Really, really good. Really good. Hey, do you plan on helping out?”  
Bruce looks miserable and Tony regrets saying that but it’s too late now.  
“I’m trying. He won’t come out,” Bruce says.  
Tony sees something out of the corner of his eye and he tackles Bruce out of the way, calling, “Hammer!”  
Tony can’t worry about Bruce as he does a loop in the sky and shoots a beam at the giant who blocks it and makes another swipe with the metal clamp thing. It catches Tony’s shoulder and he goes flying, spiralling into the ground and hitting the dirt. He barely has time to look over his shoulder when he sees the clamp come forward and Tony hopes his suit can take the hit as he thinks about how much it’s going to hurt.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Peter was sitting on the bus, rather bored, when suddenly his hairs stand straight up on his arm. Peter shivers, his spider senses tingling and he immediately looks up. He turns toward the window and his eyes widen. Oh no. Ohhhh no. He smacks Ned, hitting him in the face without looking as he scrambles to his feet to lean over the seat in front of him. Ned takes his ear buds out and turns around.  
Peter’s eyes are wide and he whispers, “Ned, hey.”  
His friend turns and follows Peter’s gaze. Peter whispers, “I need you to cause a distraction.”  
“Holy-” Ned gets to his feet, shouting a word Cap would not approve of. “We’re all gonna die!” Ned shouts, standing up and going to the front of the bus, “There’s a spaceship!”  
The chaos makes everyone file to the front of the bus and Peter knows no one is watching as he reaches into his backpack and folds his web shooter on over his hand, shooting a web at the emergency exit. He slips through the window, webbing his backpack, and grabs the edge of the bus, sticking to the side while he puts his mask on before he jumps off, backpack in hand. Peter flips himself over the side and into the air, holding onto his web with one hand. He skims the water and then swings himself toward the city.  
He hears the commotion before he sees it. He’s gotten rid of his backpack, making a mental note to apologize to May for having to get yet another one, and he swings through the city. A beam of light shines from the middle of a park and Peter flips in, landing about 30 feet away. He sees Iron Man get caught in the shoulder and he slams into the ground. The weird big giant guy pulls back a metal hammer thing and sends it hurtling toward Tony. Peter sprints and flings himself forward determinedly, skidding to a stop in front of Tony and catching the clamp, clutching the sides, holding it back from hitting Tony.  
“Hey man,” he says to the giant before he turns to looks over his shoulder. “What’s up, Mr. Stark?” Peter jokes.  
Iron Man lowers the arm he had put over his head and says, “Kid, where’d you come from?”  
Tony sounds happy, relieved, and proud, and he looks up at Pete who’s straining against the clasp.  
“A field trip,” Peter says, “To MoMA-” Suddenly he’s grabbed around the waist and flung out of the way. Peter reaches his hand out for Tony out of instinct and Tony lashes out as well to grab him, but they just miss each other and Peter lets out a yell of pain, crashing against the ground and hitting the ledge of a water fountain.  
“Pete!” Tony yells, jumping up and shooting a beam to the exposed part of the big giant’s arm.  
"Yeah- I'm- I'm good, I'm good," Peter gets up shakily and blinks away the dizziness, narrowing his eyes, “What is this guy’s problem Tony?” Peter asks.  
He shoots two webs and flings himself in the air, prepared to come down on the giant’s head when that clamp thing comes back and attaches itself around his chest, stopping him midair.  
“Uh, he’s from space,” Tony says helpfully, ducking away from a blow, “He came here to steal a necklace from a wizard.”  
"Awesome," he shoots a web to stop his fall and breaks free of the clamp, running forward and flipping into the air. A taxicab was just thrown at Tony who dodged it and Peter grabs it, as he swings by using his momentum to web it and fling it back toward the giant.  
Peter does a flip, punching the giant in the face and kicking him in the chest. Tony shoots a beam right at his neck.  
Then he sees someone wrapped in a cloak spiraling down the street and another guy on a swirling mass of rocks gaining on him. He looks at Tony who’s blocking a punch with his shield.  
“Kid, that’s the wizard. Get on it.”  
“On it!” Peter says, swinging forward. He rounds the corner, only to get hit by a street sign. Letting out a strangled cry, Peter shakes his head to clear the aching and scrambles over it before it can smash him into the ground, muttering, “Not cool.”  
The cloak ahead of him is weaving and dodging lamp posts that are closing in on it but one snags the edge and the man inside it tumbles out. Peter throws himself forward, webbing the unconscious wizard in the back just before he hits the ground, shouting, “Gotcha!”  
But just as he does, and starts to swing away, he feels a tug on his arm and he looks over his shoulder. There’s a beam of light that’s pulling the wizard up toward the big spaceship. Peter feels himself get yanked, his web breaking and he’s engulfed in the light as well. He webs a lamppost and pulls with all of his strength but the man with the powers moves his hand and makes it lift off the ground. Peter lets go of the lampost since it’s no use and kicks his legs, realizing he’s being slowly brought up in the blue beam of light.  
“Uh, Tony?” Peter yells, still holding the web, “I’m being beamed up!” He can’t hide the fear in his voice.  
“Hang on kid!” Tony shouts through his coms.  
Peter flails his arms, yelling, “Tony!” Peter forces himself to calm down, steadying his breathing. Peter waits till he gets high enough to make his move. When he’s almost sucked into the open door, he webs the side of the ship and flings himself forward with all of his might. He breaks free of the beam and slams into the side of the ship hard. Peter groans, blinking, before he steadies himself and starts to climb up the side with his spider abilities.  
“Give me a little juice FRIDAY,” he hears Tony, and Peter looks over his shoulder, almost throwing up inside his mask. He had thought the Washington Monument was high, but that was child’s play compared to this. Peter takes a breath, turning back to the ship and concentrating on climbing higher. He had seen a dot of fire which meant Tony was coming, which gave him a spark of hope.  
He heard Tony in his head again, “Unlock 17A.” Then Tony spoke to Peter, “Pete you gotta let go. I’m gonna catch you.”  
Let go? Was he crazy? Peter didn’t doubt Tony, he doubted himself. Somehow he’d screw up and Tony would blame himself and it would be all Peter’s fault. Besides, the last thing he wanted to do from this high up was let go, but Peter didn’t want Tony to think he was scared.  
“But you said save the wizard!” Peter protested, looking behind him which was another mistake. His hands were slipping and his head was pounding. His lungs were closing up and Peter sucked air through his mask, reaching up to tear it off. Peter grips the back of it and pulls it up over his head, taking a big gulp of air, his hair blowing over his forehead as he grips the ship with one hand, gasping for breath.  
Peter chokes out, “I—I can’t breathe.”  
Tony’s voice sounds like it’s underwater, “We’re too high up. You’re running out of air.”  
“Yeah,” Peter gasps, “That...makes...sense…”  
“Pete stay awake!” Tony yells, but Peter can’t hear him. There’s a ringing in his ears and Peter barely feels his fingers slipping, his lungs burn as he realizes: Darn it. I’m falling.  
Then suddenly he hears two cracks below him, like something exploded and something slams into his back, and Peter gets a chill over his entire body as something covers it. He gasps for air, opening his eyes and sees the world spinning. He flails and hits the side of the ship, sticking to the edge and standing up, breathing in, a little freaked out about what just happened. He looked down and saw his hands and whole body encased in a metal armor, and he realized what it was. His Iron Spider suit, only better. Tony had promised he would fix it up and man did it look good—even better than the original. Peter’s suit flashed in the sun and he looked at Tony was was about 40 feet from him.  
“It smells like a new car in here!” Peter exclaimed.  
“Happy trails, kid,” Tony sounds mildly guilty, especially when Peter shouts.  
“No! Wait Tony, no!”  
“FRIDAY, send him home.” Tony says, blasting off towards the ship.  
“Yep,” FRIDAY says.  
Peter feels the back of his suit explode outward and a parachute erupts, yanking him backward and whipping him around the ship as Peter’s cry of, “oh come on!” is cut off. But Peter isn’t going to let Tony do this alone. He reaches behind him and rips the straps, letting the parachute fall from one side. Flailing in open air Peter snags the edge of the ship with a web and launches himself forward, the parachute ripping completely and Peter slams into the ship hard, sticking onto it and slipping inside as the back doors close. He sees Earth getting smaller and smaller as he feels the engine rev up and Peter bites his lip. “I should have stayed on the bus,” he mutters as the doors close his view to his home.


	2. Titan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From where we left off to when Peter, Tony, and Dr. Strange run into the Gaurdians.  
> Enjoy! <3 Thanks for reading!

“Wipers! Wipers!” Rocket shouts, waving his hand, “Get it off!”  
Quill rolled his eyes, but he had to admit he wanted to get the corpse off his windshield. There was a lump in his throat as he looked past the body at all the destruction.   
What could have-  
Then suddenly the one eye of the man (because the other is covered with an eyepatch) opens and they Guardians jump and shout again in shock. Quill unhooks his seatbelt and goes to the back of the ship, “Rocket, take the ship. I’m gonna grab him.”  
“Got it!” Rocket calls as Quill straps a spacesuit to him.  
A couple minutes later, Quill slams the dude down on the nearest flat surface they have, the bar table.   
“How the heck is this dude still alive?” Quill exclaims.  
“He is not a dude,” Drax says, marveling at the guy on the table, “You’re a dude.”  
Quill makes a face.  
“This...This is a man. A handsome, muscular man,” Drax says, and he’s never seen the guy so enthralled over someone.  
Quill glares at him, “I’m muscular.”  
Rocket scoffs, crossing his arms, “But who are you kidding, Quill? You’re one sandwich away from fat.”  
Quill scoffs back, but he’s kinda hurt, “Yeah, right.”  
“It’s true Quill,” Drax says grimly, like he’s telling him he’s dying or something, “You have put on weight.”  
“What?” Quill exclaims.   
Drax nods, using hand motions like Quill didn’t understand what he was saying.   
Quill turns to Gamora, “Gamora...do you think I’m—”  
“He’s anxious, angry,” Mantis says, her hands pressed against the side of the ‘man’s’ head, “He feels tremendous loss and guilt.”  
“It’s like a pirate had a baby with an angel,” Drax breaths.  
“Wow,” Quill says, still hung up over the fact they all thought he had gained weight, “This is a real wake-up call for me,” Quill says, absolutely astonished, “Okay. I’m gonna get a Bowflex. I’m gonna commit. I’m gonna get some dumbbells.”  
Rocket crosses his arms, “You know you can’t eat dumbbells right Quill?”  
Quill glares at him, about to come back with some nasty retort when he sees something way more worthy of his attention—Gamora stroking the guys arm.  
“It’s like his muscles are make of Cotati metal fibers,” She says.  
Quill shoots her a look, “Stop massaging his muscles.”  
Gamora looks at him, rather annoyed and makes a big show of dropping the man’s arm.   
“Wake him up,” Quill nods at Mantis.  
Matis presses her hands against the dude-man’s head and her antenna glow. She whispers, “Wake.”  
With a roar, the man jolts up on the table and stumbles off. Quill has his hand on his blaster and Gamora’s got her hand on her knife. The man leans against the side of the ship, breathing hard before he finally turns around.   
His voice is rough and raspy, “Who the heck are you guys?”  
After introductions and such, they learn who the guy is: the God of Thunder, Thor. Shortly after, one thing led to another, and they got on the topic of Thanos—a topic Quill did not like very much.   
“The entire time I knew Thanos, he only ever had one goal. To bring balance to the universe by wiping out half of all life.” Quill saw Gamora stop and purse her lips before continuing, “He used to kill people, planet by planet, massacre by massacre—including my own.” Then her fierce glare is back and she says, “If he gets all six Infinity Stones… he can do it with the snap of his fingers like this,” Gamora snaps and somehow it echoes in the ship, hollow and threatening. Quill hopes to never hear that sound, or experience what comes after.  
He notices Thor has been watching Gamora the whole time and he finally crosses his arms, his deep voice accusing and rough, “You seem to know a great deal about Thanos.”  
Uh oh. And of course Drax has to say, “Gamora is the daughter of Thanos.”  
Quill shoots him a look, his hand moving to his side blaster just in case.   
Thor says, “Your father killed my brother.” He starts to walk across the room. Quill stepped toward Gamora, who could probably take the god guy anyway, but just to be safe, he put his hand on her back and gripped his blaster.   
“Stepfather, technically,” Quill says, “And she hates him as much as you do.”  
Thor stops, and smiles sadly, putting his hand on her shoulder, “Families can be tough.”  
Quill was watching the hand that was on Gamora’s shoulder in distaste and he frowned, wanting to shove it off.  
Meanwhile, Thor was explaining his family tree, “...imprisoned in Hel, and then she returned home and stabbed me in the eye so I had to kill her.”  
Gamora was frowning, looking at him with a sad expression. The other Guardians looked deflated like that was the worst thing they had heard.   
“That’s life though, isn’t it I guess,” Quill said, “Goes round and round and…”  
“I feel your pain,” Thor says, his hand still on Gamora’s shoulder.   
Quill’s had enough of the shoulder thing and he cut in front of them, knocking Thor’s arm off and putting his hand on Gamora’s other shoulder, “I feel your pain as well, because,” Quill shrugged, “I mean, it’s not a competition, but I’ve been through a lot. Personally. My father killed my mother and then I had to kill my father. That was hard. Probably even harder than having to kill a sister. Plus,” Quill adds, “I came out with both my eyes which was—”  
Thor has seemed to ignore him and walks around the ship, picking up the spoon he had been using to eat some soup, “I need a hammer not a spoon.”  
“Hammer?” Quill says, making a face.  
Thor walks to the back of the ship and starts punching in random buttons and swiping his finger across their screen for the pod, “How do I open this is thing? Is there some sort of 4-digit code maybe? Maybe a birthdate-”  
“What are you doing?” Quill asks.  
“Taking your pod,” Thor announces, continuing to hit buttons.   
Quill clears his throat and lowers his voice, mocking Thor’s low voice, “No. you’re not. You will not be taking our pod today, sir.”  
“Uh, Quill, are you making your voice deeper?” Rocket asks.  
Shoot. Well, let’s just go with it. “No,” Quill says.   
“You are. You’re imitating the god-man,” Drax says angrily.  
“No, I’m not,” Quill said, giving them a look to drop it.  
“He just did it again!” Mantis gasps, pointing a finger at him.  
“This is my voice,” Quill said.  
“Are you mocking me?” Thor growled, his eyes flashing as he walked up to Quill, hoping to tower over him but Quill stood his ground; they were roughly the same height.  
“Are you mocking me?” Quill said back.  
“Stop it, you did it again,” Thor says angrily.  
“He’s trying to copy me,” Quill says, nodding smugly, turning to the other Guardians. Now he’s just having fun with it.   
“I need you to stop doing that.”  
“Enough!” Gamora yells.  
“He’s doing it first,” Thor grumbles.   
“We need to stop Thanos,” Gamora says, “Which means we need to find out where he’s going next.”  
“Knowhere,” Thor says immediately.  
Mantis laughs, “He must be going somewhere,” she said.  
“No. No. Knowhere. It’s a place. We’ve been there. It sucks—hey! Excuse me, that’s our food,” Quill says, getting rather annoyed with this Thor guy who was grabbing packets out of their refrigerator.  
“Not anymore,” Thor says cockily, and Quill wants to slap him.  
“Thor why would he go to Knowhere?’ Gamora says, her voice surprisingly calm.   
“Because for years the Reality Stone's been safely stored there with a man called the Collector,” Thor says.  
Quill shakes his head, “If it's with the Collector, then it's not safe. Only an idiot would give that man a stone.”  
“Or a genius,” Thor grumbles.  
“How do you know he’s not going for one of the other stones?”  
“There are 6 stones out there,” Thor says, his tone changing, “Thanos already has the Power Stone because he stole it last week when he decimated Xandar.”  
Quill’s heart gets crushed. He can’t ask what happened because Thor is continuing and frankly, he doesn’t want to know. But the other guardians feel the same way, and their expressions show it: shock, anger, fear, sadness. The word he used—decimated—  
“He stole the Space Stone from me when he destroyed my ship and slaughtered half my people. The Time and Mind Stones are safe on Earth. They’re with the Avengers.”  
“Yeah. We know,” then he does a double take and points at Thor, “Wait, you know the Avengers?”  
“Yes I know the Avengers,” Thor says angrily, “I am an Avenger.”  
“We met those guys!” Quill says, “Tony and Peter and Cap- that’s so cool. What a small world.”  
Thor smiles at Tony and Cap, but knits his eyebrows for Peter’s name. He asks, “Peter?”  
“Tony’s son- wait guys was he his son?” Quill looks behind him.  
“Yes,” Drax says.  
“No,” Gamora said, and then looked at Drax.  
“I am Groot.”  
“Whatever,” Quill says, “Long story. You don’t know him?”  
“I haven’t been to Earth in a while,” Thor shrugs.  
“Oh.”  
“As for the Soul Stone, well, no one’s ever seen that. No one even knows where it is,” Thor shrugs.  
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Gamora tense, look down, suddenly nervous. She bites her lip. Gamora never bites her lip. Quill reminds himself to talk to her about that.   
“Therefore Thanos can’t get it,” Thor continues, “Therefore he’s going to Knowhere. Hence he’ll be getting the Reality Stone, you’re welcome.” Thor says, like he just saved their lives.  
Quill is tempted to use that expression Peter used back on Earth, ‘thank you for listening to my TED talk’, but he decided not to. Instead he says, “Then we have to go to Knowhere now.”  
“Wrong,” Thor says, “Where we have to go is Nidavellir.”  
“That’s a made up word,” Drax scoffs.  
“All words are made up,” Thor counters and Quill rolls his eyes.  
“Nidavellir is real?” Rocket exclaims, “Seriously? That place is a legend. They make the most powerful horrific weapons to ever torment the universe!”  
Quill doesn’t like the look in Rocket’s eyes. Thor seems thrilled.  
“I would very much like to go there, please,” Rocket says excitedly.  
“The rabbit is correct and clearly the smartest among you,” Thor announces.  
“Rabbit?” Rocket scoffs.   
“Only Etri the Dwarf can make me the weapon I need,” Thor states. Then he clears his throat, “I assume you’re the captain, sir?” Thor says. Quill is about to nod when he realizes the god is talking to Rocket who happily nods.  
“You’re very perceptive,” Rocket smirks. Quill glares at him.  
“You seem like a noble leader. Will you join me on my quest to Nidavellir?” Thor asks.  
“Let me just ask the captain-” Rocket jokes before he pulls on his vest and punches his chest, “Oh wait a sec, it’s me! Yeah, I’ll go.”  
“Wonderful,” Thor grins.  
Quill raises his hand as Rocket pushes past him, “Uh, except for that I’m the captain?”  
“Quiet,” Rocket shushes.  
“That’s my backpack?” Quill says, trying to snatch it back from Rocket who spins away.  
Rocket wags his finger, sauntering toward the pod. He calls over his shoulder, “Go sit down.”  
Quill’s fuming and he says, “Look, this is my ship. And I’m not going to- wait, what kind of weapon are we talking about here?” He says, trying to wrap his head around all of this.  
“A Thanos killing kind,” Thor says.  
Quill blinks, guestering to his friends, “Don’t you think we should all have a weapon like that?”  
“No,” Thor shrugs, “No. You simply lack the strength to wield them. Your bodies would crumble  
as your minds collapsed into madness.”  
Rocket rubs his chin, “Is it weird that I want to do it even more now?”  
Thor thinks about it and then nods, “Mmm, a little bit, yeah.”  
“If we don’t go to Knowhere and Thanos retrieves another stone-” Gamora says, “he’ll be too powerful to stop.”  
“He already is,” Thor says softly.  
“I got it figured out,” Rocket announces, “We’ve got 2 ships, and a large assortment of morons. So me and Groot will go with the pirate angel here, and the morons will go to Knowhere and try and stop Thanos. Cool?”  
“So cool,” Thor smiled.  
“You’re a moron,” Quill mutters before he catches Rocket’s vest and pulls him back, “For the record, I know that you’re going with him because it’s where Thanos isn’t.”  
Rocket pulls away and winks, “You know, you really shouldn’t talk that way to your captain, Quill.”  
“Trash panda,” Quill hisses.   
“Come on, Groot, and put that game down, you’ll rot your brain,” Rocket says, getting in the pod.   
“I bid you farewell and good luck morons,” Thor says sincerely, getting in the pod with Rocket and waving, “Bye.”   
And they detach from the ship and zoom out of sight.  
“I hate him,” Quill says angrily.  
“I know,” Gamora takes his arm and leads him away, shutting the door.  
“I hate him,” Quill says again.  
“No you don’t,” Gamora smiles.  
Quill nods vigorously, “I do though.”  
“You’ve mentioned it,” Gamora says.  
“I’m gonna kill him one day,” Quill swears.  
“Ok,” Gamora smiles. She doesn’t believe him.  
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“Still no word from Vision?” Ross asks.  
Rhodey shakes his head, “Satellites lost him somewhere over Edinburgh.”  
Ross sighs, his blue shimmering form looks annoyed, “On a Stolen Quinjet with four of the world’s most wanted criminals.”  
“You know they’re not criminals, right, sir?” Rhodey asks.  
Ross raises his eyebrows and shuffles some papers, letting out a low humorless laugh, “You’re talent for bull rivals mine, Rhodes.”  
“At least you know that, sir,” Rhodey nods.  
Ross glares at him.  
“We both know that if it wasn’t for you, Vision would be right here, in this room, along with a team of Avengers. But instead, you had to screw things up, again, and now Tony and Peter are in space, and we’re scattered all over the world. But wait, you need us again,” Rhodey said angrily.   
“Yet you signed the first accords,” Ross points out.  
“Yeah and I’ve told you—I paid for that,” Rhodey says, gesturing to his knee brace.  
“Second thoughts?” Ross asks, almost smugly.  
“Not anymore,” Rhodey says, turning to look at the people walking in.   
Dang, it’s been a while. Cap comes in first. He’s grown a beard and changed his suit. Rhodey shares a smile with Sam. Nat has died her hair blonde and she’s next to Steve. Vision is being helped limp in by Wanda.   
Cap speaks first, walking down the stairs, “Mr. Secretary.”  
“You’ve got some nerve. I’ll give you that,” Ross sighs, standing up from the table in the hologram.  
“You could use some of that right now,” Cap says, his tone serious.  
“The world is on fire. And you think all is forgiven?” Ross asks.  
Steve shakes his head, “I’m not looking for forgiveness. And I’m way past asking for permission. Earth just lost her best defender. So we’re here to fight. And if you want to stand in our way, we’ll fight you too.”  
Rhodey felt a surge of admiration when Steve called Tony Earth’s best defender.   
“Arrest them,” Ross says.  
“All over it,” Rhodey nods before swiping the hologram away. He raises his eyebrows, “That’s a court martial right there. It’s great to see you Cap,” Rhodey says, giving Steve a hug.   
“You too Rhodey,” Steve smiles.  
“Wow. You guys…” Rhodey laughs, “Really look like crap. Must of been a rough couple months?” Rhodey jokes.  
“Yeah well, the hotels weren’t exactly 5 stars,” Sam grins. Rhodey grins back: their way of saying they were cool.   
“I think you look great,” Bruce says, and everyone’s eyes widen as he walks in.  
Bruce nods, “Yeah, I’m back.”  
“Hi Bruce,” Nat says softly.  
“Nat,” Banner says, smiling slightly.   
They exchange looks and Falcon says what everyone’s thinking, “This is awkward.”  
“Where’s Peter?” Cap asks.  
He sees Rhodey’s expression and his face blanches.  
“What did you expect Cap?” Rhodey says, smiling weakly, “it’s Peter.”  
“True,” Cap sighs.  
Rhodey knows exactly what he’s thinking. The kid was way too young to get involved with all this, but he was. Rhodey could only hope he found Tony, and that they both were safe.  
Rhodey breaks the awful silence, “Let’s go into the living room. We have a lot to talk about,” he said grimly.  
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Peter crawls on the top of the ship, what he thinks is the ceiling and hears talking from down below. It looks like the weird Squidward looking guy has the wizard hostage and is poking these needles into him. That looks like it hurts. He winces and makes sure he's quiet so he goes undetected. Peter continues to look when finally, finally, he finds Tony, about 60 feet away, talking to the red cloak that had saved the wizard’s life.  
“...loyal piece of outerwear aren’t you?” Stark says.  
Peter lowers himself on a web upside down, “Yeah, uh, speaking of loyalty—”  
Tony jumps and turns, as Peter does a flip, drops to the ground and his mask recedes. Tony’s expression turns from shock, to anger- and then it stays at anger. Peter starts speaking before Tony can. “I know what you’re going to say-”  
“You shouldn’t be here!” Tony hisses.   
“I was gonna go home,” Peter protests.  
Tony shakes his head, “ I don’t want to hear it.”  
“But it was such a long way down,” Peter says, waving his hands to make his point, “and I just thought—”  
“And now I gotta hear it,” Tony sighs, rubbing his nose.  
“And I kinda stuck to the side of the ship and this suit,” Peter looks down at his arms before pointing at Tony, “which is ridiculously intuitive by the way—”  
“For the love of God, Pete—” Tony whispers.  
“So if anything, it’s kinda your fault I’m here,” Peter points out.   
“What did you just say to me?” Tony says angrily, glaring at Peter. He gives him that look and Peter backtracks, waving his arms.  
“I take that back,” Peter says. Then he looks around, “And now I’m here. In space. With you.”  
“Yeah,” Tony snaps, “Right where I didn’t want you to be. This isn’t Coney Island Pete. This isn’t a field trip. This may be a one way ticket. Do you hear me? And don’t pretend you thought this through—”  
Peter narrows his eyes, “I did think this through.”  
“You could not have possibly thought this through,” Tony says.  
“I did think this through!” Peter had been raising his voice and he lowers it again, afraid of being heard, “I did. But Tony, you can’t…” he locks eyes with Tony, “You can’t be a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man if there’s no neighborhood,” Peter says. He blinks, registers the words and then blinks again, “Okay that didn’t really make sense, but you know what I’m trying to say.”  
Tony looks at him, then sighs, “I’m mad at you.”  
“I know,” Peter says, grinning, “Sorry.”  
Tony pulls him into a hug, “I’m glad you’re okay.”  
“Me too,” Peter says.   
Tony grips him harder, “If you get hurt-”  
“I won’t get hurt,” Peter protests, hugging him back, burying his face in the iron armor.  
Tony pulls away and grips Peter’s shoulders, shaking his head, trying to figure out what to say. He stops and sighs, before leading Peter over to the ledge, “Come on. We got a situation. See him down there? He’s in trouble. What’s your plan? Go.”  
“Um, okay, okay, uh…” Peter snaps, “Okay. Did you ever see Aliens? That movie I really love?”  
“Yeah I saw it-” Tony understands, Peter can tell. Mr. Stark takes a breath, “Risky...like all my plans. You’re really taking keys from the master now,” he grins at Peter.  
Like father, like son, Peter guesses, and Peter grins as Tony winks, his helmet flips down and he flies off the balcony.   
Peter can’t hear what he’s saying to the Squidward guy, but then Tony raises his voice, “Yeah but the kid’s seen more movies.”  
Peter swoops down as Tony blasts a hole in the ship, and Peter immediately feels himself pulled forward from a vacuum. He shoots a web at the wizard who’s flung out the hole and it sticks onto his back as Peter grabs the nearest thing on the ship that looks sturdy, yelling in pain as they’re both yanked. Peter’s grip slips and he cries out, falling straight for the window when new and improved spider legs come out of his back and spread out, stopping him from getting sucked into space.   
“Yes!” Peter presses his feet against the sides, readies his stance, squats, and then jumps up as high as he can. He flies through the air making sure to not let go of the web. The minute the wizard is inside, Tony shuts the whole and Peter feels himself drop, dropping the web and flailing. He yelps, hitting the edge of the balcony hard, and falling on his side. Peter gets slowly to his feet, holding his side as the air returns to normal. Peter finds he’s right by the cloak and he sticks out his hand, “Hey. We haven’t officially met yet.”  
The cloak flies away to the wizard and drapes over him. Peter purses his lips and nods, giving him a thumbs up, “Cool.”  
“We’ve got to turn this ship around,” the wizard says, like he’s been fine the whole time.  
“You’re welcome,” Peter grumbles.  
Tony sighs, and Peter realizes they had the exact same expression on their face, “Yeah, now he wants to run. Great plan.”  
“No,” the wizard says, “I want to protect the stone.”  
“And I, want you to thank me. And the kid,” Tony says, waving his hand, “Now, go ahead, I’m listening.”  
“For what?” The wizard snorts, “Nearly blasting me into space?”  
Tony laughs, “Who just saved your magical butt? Me and the kid.”  
“I seriously don’t know how you fit your head into that helmet,” the wizard shakes his head.  
Tony laughs again with no humor, “One, heard that before. Two, admit it, you should have dropped out when I told you to. I tried to bench you, you refused.”  
“Unlike everyone else in your world, I don’t work for you,” The wizard snaps.   
“Yeah, and due to that fact, we’re now in a flying doughnut, billions of miles from Earth with no backup,” Tony shouts.  
“I’m backup!” Peter says, raising his hand.   
“No. You’re a stowaway Pete. The adults are talking,” Tony says, “I’m still mad at you.”  
“Ok,” Peter sighs.   
“I’m sorry, I’m confused as to the relationship here. What is he, your ward?” The wizard says, making a sour face.  
“No,” Tony shakes his head, “Son. Kinda.”  
“Dad. Kinda,” Peter says at the same time. He and Tony exchange a look. Peter grins, and then he blinks, “I’m Peter by the way,” he holds out his hand.  
The doctor shakes it, “Dr. Stange.”  
“Oh,” Peter says, “we’re using our made-up names. I’m Spiderman then.”  
“That’s nice,” the wizard says. Suddenly the ship lurches and the wizard looks to the controls, “This ship is self correcting its course.”  
“Thing’s on autopilot,” Tony says.   
Peter glances between the both of them.   
“Can we control it?” the wizard asks, “Fly us home?” Tony doesn’t answer.  
“Stark?” the wizard asks, more urgently.  
“Yeah?” Tony says.  
“Can you get us home?” the wizard repeats.  
“Yeah I heard you,” Tony says, glancing up, “I’m thinking I’m not so sure we should.”  
The wizard shakes his head violently, “Under no circumstances, can we bring the Time Stone to Thanos. I don’t think you quite understand what’s at stake here.”  
Tony looks up, his eyes flashing, “What? No. It’s you who doesn’t understand, that Thanos has been inside my head for 6 years. Since he sent an army to New York and now he’s back.”  
Peter watched Tony, and felt his dad’s pain with him as Tony grit his teeth.  
“And I’m not sure what to do,” Tony said, “So I’m not so sure if it’s a better plan to fight him on our turf or his, but you saw what they did and what they can do. At least on his turf, he’s not expecting it. So I say, we take the fight to him. Doctor.” Tony was right up in the wizard’s face. “Do you concur?” Tony asked, tone dripping with sarcasm. It wasn’t a question, but Peter waited for the answer.  
“Alright Stark,” the wizard said, narrowing his eyes, “But you have to understand if it comes to saving you, or the kid, or the Time Stone, I will not hesitate to let you die.”  
“Thanks,” Peter says, giving him a thumbs up.  
“I can’t,” says Dr. Strange, “because the universe depends on it.”  
Tony nodded, patting the wizard’s chest, “Nice. Good, moral compass. We’re straight.” Tony splits away from Dr. Strange and walks towards Peter who stands up straighter.  
“Still mad?” Peter asks, raising his eyebrows.  
“Oh yeah,” Tony nods, “Just less.” He puts his arm around Peter’s shoulder, “Just…”  
He doesn’t finish. But Peter knows exactly what he’s thinking. Be safe. Don’t be stupid. Don’t get hurt. Be smart.  
“I know,” Peter assures him.  
“Pete—I—I can’t…” Tony trails off.  
“I know,” Peter says again. I can’t lose you.   
Tony nods, and Peter’s a little unsettled by the fear in Tony’s eyes, that is until he realizes it’s not fear for the circumstances, or himself, but for Peter. Now Tony’s staring at him with a different look, like he’s debating whether to do something.   
Tony opens his mouth, then closes it. He then sighs, raising his eyebrows, “Heck.”  
“What?” Peter asks.  
Tony shrugs, but there’s a twinkle in his eye, “This is not the way it should happen, and it’s not the way I had in mind. But I should have done this a while ago,” Tony says, standing up straighter.  
Peter tenses, holding his breath. Oh my gosh.  
Tony taps each of his shoulders, like he’s knighting him, “Congrats, kid. You’re an Avenger now.”  
Peter can’t breath. He smiles. He feels so much lighter. Peter’s in shock as Tony walks away, and he grins, gulping in air that he forgot to take in. Wait he shouldn’t smile, he needs to be serious. But oh my gosh. Peter blinks, biting his lip, and becoming as serious about this as he can, but he can’t stop the pride bursting through his chest and the happiness that fills his heart. He looks at Tony with bright eyes. Tony smiles and nods back. Peter can’t believe it.   
He’s an Avenger now.  
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Quill can’t breath. He sits in the ship staring at the wall. His hand is trembling. He’s got his headphones on, but he can barely hear his music. His mind is spinning and he’s breathing is rapid and choked by sobs. He can’t believe what just happened.   
Seeing Thanos gripping Gamora’s hair, taunting him to pull the trigger.  
“I love you, more than anything,” she had sobbed.  
“I love you too,” he had said.   
And he had pulled the trigger, just like she had wanted. Just like she had told him, when they were alone, except for Drax who thought he was invisible, that if Thanos got her, he needed to kill her—for some unknown reason Quill dreaded he would never find out. He remembered her smile, the kiss they had shared and he forced away any thought that said it was his last with her. It had been hard. But he had done it. His finger had tightened around the trigger as he closed his eyes, his grip shaking. And what had come out? Bubbles.   
Bubbles.   
Quill took a shaky breath. He remembered Thanos smiling at him, saying, “I like him.” And then he and Gamora vanished, and Quill had lunged at thin air, falling to the cracked ground in disbelief. And he still couldn’t believe it.   
What had come out of his blaster?  
Bubbles.  
Quill put his head in his hands, and cried.   
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Tony paced the ship, arguing with the wizard. He was really getting on his nerves. Peter had been swinging around the ship, on a new level of energy ever since Tony had made him an Avenger. Tony still couldn't get over the look on his kid’s face. He wish he had been recording it.   
“So I have to ask,” Strange said, “is he...your son?”  
“Yes,” Tony said, a warm feeling in his chest. Basically.  
“Ok,” Strange said, not wanting to get into it, “And he’s how old?”  
“16,” Stark said.  
“And he’s an Avenger?’ The doctor raised an eyebrow.   
“Yeah he’s brilliant, and—” Tony turns to look at Peter who of course, at that moment, shoots a random ricochet web and it hits him right in the face. Toy smirks before he changes his wording, “He’s gifted.”  
“Ah ha,” the doctor says slowly, before he made some excuse about contacting Wong and went off to the corner to play with his hand sparklers.   
Tony wandered over to where Peter was swinging around and he called up, “Pete, chill.”  
“Sorry,” Peter dropped to the ground, still jittery and grinning.  
“You okay?” Tony asks him.  
“Yes,” Peter says, “More than okay. Very, very okay. Yep.”  
Tony laughs.   
Then Peter’s smile fades a bit.  
“What kid?” Tony asks.  
“Its...well, it’s...it’s Fathers Day,” Peter blurts out.   
Tony had totally forgot. He had been so distracted with everything, he didn’t even think Pepper had remembered—he definitely hadn’t. But Peter had. Of course Peter had.   
“I made you a video,” Peter says, a little shyly, “And I sent it to your computer. But...now we’re here and...yeah…”  
Tony can’t help but grin, “It’s ok, kid. I’ll watch it the minute we get back home. I promise.”  
“You promise?” Peter asked.  
“I promise,” Tony grinned, giving Peter a hug.   
“Happy father’s day, Dad,” Peter says into his chest.  
Tony grins, holding his son tight, “Thanks, kid.”  
“Still mad?” Peter teases when they pull away.  
“We’re at mildly annoyed now,” Tony grins, ruffling his hair.   
Peter grins, “I can live with that.”   
There’s silence. But it’s not awkward in any way. It’s never awkward with Peter.  
“I’m sorry,” Peter says.  
Tony jerked his head up. He hated those words, “Kid, don’t say sorry-”  
“I just wanted to help-” Peter said, “I don’t want to get in the way but I figured I could fight and help you—”  
“You can. I’m glad you’re here kid,” Tony said.  
“Really?” Peter grins.  
“Really,” Tony says. And then Tony locks eyes with him, “I’m not letting anything happen to you.”  
Peter nods, “I know.”  
“Not. One. Thing,” Tony repeats firmly.  
“I know dad,” Peter says softly.   
Then suddenly the ship jolts and Tony steadies Peter as they stumble a bit.  
“Hey what’s going on?” Peter wonders.  
Tony rushes over to the console, “I think we’re here.” He realizes with a start that, “I don’t think this rig has a self park function.” He calls over to Peter before realizing the kid was already at his side, “Get your hand inside the steering gimbal.”   
Peter doesn’t question him for a second and he mimics Tony’s movements, sticking his arm inside the hole.   
“Close those around it,” Tony says, pushing down on the two clasps, “You understand?”  
“Yep, got it,” Peter pushes his down too. Tony sees the planet come into view as they break through the atmosphere.  
“This was meant for one big guy so we gotta move at the same time. Okay?” Tony says, alarmed at how fast they were going.  
“Okay,” Peter nods, gripping his steering lever.  
“Ready?”  
“Yeah,” Peter grunts, already pulling back as the ship plummets down. Tony sees a massive structure ahead of them, and although he feels like the planet is deserted, he doesn’t want to crash at this speed.   
Peter sees it too and his kid shouts, “We might want to turn,” Peter shouts, “Turn. Turn! TURN!”  
They both strain on the clamps and the wizard steps between them, waving his hands, creating a forcefield around them. They clip the side of the building and the whole ship shakes. Tony hears a grinding sound like something’s been knocked off. The ship’s engines seem to slow as they plummet for the ground and Tony yells, “Brace!”  
They hit the ground and Tony feels half the ship rip off and sand and dirt fly up across the big window as they have a great crash landing. The claps release automatically and Tony and Peter go tumbling, smacking into the forcefield wall that eventually shatters. They bounce the other way and Tony hits the floor hard. He gets up, realizing the ship isn’t moving anymore- well, what’s left of it. He takes a breath. They’ve landed. They’re on Titan. Not what he thought he’d be doing today.

...

Peter’s groaning and getting to his feet as well.   
“You alright?” Tony calls, jogging over.   
“Yeah,” he gives his dad a thumbs up. The wizard brushes off his cape and Tony helps him to his feet muttering, “That was close.” The wizard nods, out of breath and Peter realizing doing that forcefield must have taken a lot of strength, but it also saved their lives.  
Tony must have thought the same thing because he says, “I owe you one.”   
Peter hears a noise, his spider senses tingling and swings up to the balcony and hangs from the ceiling just for fun so he can lower himself down right behind Tony.   
He scares the crap out of him when he says, “Let me just say, if aliens wind up implanting eggs in my chest or something, and I eat one of you, I’m sorry.”  
Tony glares at him, “I do not want another single pop culture reference out of you for the rest of the trip. You understand?”  
“I’m trying to say that something is coming.” Peter says, just as the door bursts open and someone runs in with a roar.   
“THANOS!”  
Peter flips up, about to shoot a web, but recognizes the voice. He does a double take and stumbles to a stop, his hand outstretched, his fingers really close to his palm, but not touching. He’s so unfocused that he suddenly he sees a blast coming at him and he dodges that one narrowly, sliding to the floor. Peter gets to his feet and tries to see what’s going on. Is it really who he thinks it is? Another shot from the next person that enters and he lunges out of the way, unable to get a good look. Unfortunately, Tony doesn’t recognize who they people are and he fires back, ducking behind a section of the ship and shooting without looking.   
The wizard doesn’t know who the people are, which is a problem, because he’s kicking their butts. Tony’s gotten stuck to the nearest piece of metal by something attached to his arc reactor and Peter tries to go help, flinging himself into the air, but his feet get snagged by some sort of wire and he pitches forward, flipping, trying to shoot a web behind him to stop his fall. He hooks the top of the ship and swings himself backward back where he came, but then that’s a problem because Peter can’t land right so he hits the ground and rolls, tumbling away to the far side of the ship. He hits the wall and tugs at the ropes around his legs, trying to loosen them.   
“Karen, is it them?” Peter shouts, but she doesn’t have to answer.  
“I’m gonna ask you one time,” Quill snarls at Stange who is pointing his fist at Drax, pinning him to the floor with some spell, “Where’s Gamora?”  
It’s them. But unfortunately, Tony is too busy struggling, and they really hadn’t count sight of each other. Everyone, including Tony had taken cover the minute the first shots were fired, and being on an alien planet, they both expected there to be enemies here. Peter had been knocked away, and the only person the Guardians saw was Dr. Strange, who they didn’t recognize.  
“Yeah, I’ll do you one better. Who is Gamora?” Strange exclaims.  
“I’ll do you one better! Why is Gamora!” Drax yells at him from the ground.  
“Tell me where she is!” Quill yells. Peter strains against the ropes. Tony’s pushing as hard as he can against the metal, the electricity zapping, but Peter doubts he’s connected the dots yet; he’s kind of busy.  
“Back off or I unleash curses on your friend,” Strange threatens.   
“I can take it Quill!” Drax roars.  
“What master do you serve?” Dr. Strange asks.  
“Am I supposed to say Jesus?” Quill spits, walking forward, holding his gun.  
“Quill!” Peter yells, but he’s too far away.   
“Are you with Thanos?” Dr. Strange asks.  
“With—” Quill frowns.  
“Quill!” Peter yells, swinging himself forward, finally getting the ropes off. He sprints toward him yelling, “Quill! It’s me!”   
Tony breaks fee and flies over next to Pete, landing, his helmet receding and he grins, “You little jerk. Star Prince.”  
Quill lowers his blaster and clicks the side of his head. His face is visible, and it doesn’t look much different since the last time they saw each other.   
“Pete?” Quill says in disbelief.  
“Yeah!” Peter grins, walking over and giving him a hug. Quill ruffles his hair, his eyes wide. Dr. Strange helps Drax up off the ground and Mantis shyly approaches both of them, waving at Peter.  
Quill’s in shock and he gives Tony a quick hug before he knits his eyebrows at Tony and Peter, “What are you doing here?”   
“I’m an Avenger,” Peter says proudly.   
“As of when?’ Quill whoops, giving him a high five  
“10 minutes ago,” Tony smirks, punching Peter lightly on the arm.   
“Thor told what happened-” Quill says.  
“Wait, you know Thor?” Tony laughs, “I haven’t seen that guy in ages. Thor, God of Thunder Thor?”  
“Thor,” Quill nods, “Yeah. Tall guy, not that good looking, needed saving,” Quill says.  
Peter makes a face, “What?”  
“Not the point,” Tony says, “Where is he now Quill?” Tony asks, before he looks around, “And where’s Gamora?”


	3. Don’t call us plucky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From where we left off to the battle on titan.  
> Enjoy! Thanks for reading!<3

Tony pulls them all in a huddle, a loose huddle, and starts talking. Peter walks up first, standing right by Tony’s side. He wonders what they’ll do next. He’s still rather shocked that Thanos has Gamora. He hopes she’s ok.  
“We’ve got one advantage,” Tony says, snapping Peter out of his thoughts, “He’s coming to us. We’ll use it.” He clasps his hands, “Alright, I have a plan. Or at least a beginning of one,” Tony says, rubbing his neck, “It’s pretty simple. We draw him in, pin him down, get what we need.”  
Peter sees Mantis doing jumping jacks because of the low gravity, jumping high into the air and he squints in confusion, lifting his hand and thinking, what is she doing?  
“Definitely don’t wanna dance with this guy, we just want the gauntlet,” Tony said.  
Drax is standing a ways off and he yawns. Tony’s gaze switches and Peter glares at Drax to get his attention before Tony can get annoyed. Too late.  
“Are you yawning?” Tony says angrily, “Again Drax, really? Did you hear what I said?”  
“I stopped listening after you said ‘we need a plan’,” Drax said.  
Peter sighs.  
“Okay, Mr. Clean is on his own page,” Tony sighs, exchanging a tired glance with Peter.  
“As usual,” Quill grumbles.  
“Mr. Lord?” Tony asks, “Can you please just get- circle your folks up please? We gotta coalesce.”  
“Starlord,” Quill grumbles, but he knows that Tony’s kidding. Mantis and Drax head over and now they’re in a football huddle type thing.  
Tony puts up his hands, palms out, “Because if all we come at him with is a plucky attitude-”  
“Dude, don’t call us plucky,” Quill says.  
“Do you even know what it means?” Peter asks.  
“Yeah,” Quill says unconvincingly.  
Tony raises his eyebrows.  
“No,” Quill relents.  
Peter gives Tony a fist bump.  
Quill waves his hands, “Alright, listen, Tony: I like your plan, except, it sucks. So let me do the plan and that way it might be really good.”  
“Wow,” Tony says.  
Peter grins, “Plan or concept? Is it above 45%-”  
“That’s enough of you, Parker-” Quill says, laughing.  
“I seem to recall a dance off to save the universe?” Tony rubs his goatee, “What movie was it like, Pete?”  
“I thought you said no pop culture references,” Peter jokes.  
“Fair enough,” Tony grins, punching him lightly in the arm.  
“Footloose,” Peter says, “It was Footloose. With Kevin Bacon.”  
“Has anything changed since we left Earth? It’s still the greatest movie of all time right?” Quill asks.  
“It never was,” Peter said.  
“Don’t encourage this alright?” Tony smirks, taking Peter’s shoulder.  
Peter grins, “Okay.”  
“We’re getting no help from Flash Gordon over here-” Tony smirks.  
“Flash Gordon?” Quill scoffs, “By the way, that’s a compliment. Don’t forget that I’m half human remember?”  
“Weirdo,” Peter says, grinning.  
“Yeah, well that 50% of me that’s stupid? That’s 100% you.”  
“Your math is blowing my mind,” Tony says, blinking.  
Peter laughs.  
Mantis then speaks up, “Um excuse me? But does your friend often do that?”  
She’s pointing at Dr. Strange who’s levitating in a criss cross applesauce position, his hands outstretched, the stone gleaming from his neck, and his head and body is blurry, but it’s not Peter’s eyesite. He’s glitching in time, his head, neck, hands, everything moving at super speed. Tony and Peter are the first to run over, “Strange, we alright?”  
No one wants to touch him, in fear that they could screw up something, but then the wizard gasps, falling back onto the rock he had been levitating above, his movements at normal speed now, his eyes wide and fearful.  
“Tony, is he ok?” Peter whispers.  
Tony grabs the wizard’s shoulders, steadying him.  
“You’re back, you’re alright. Hi,” Tony says, “Hey, here’s a question: what was that?”  
The wizard’s voice is raspy. Peter knits his eyebrows at his exhausted stance, like he was draining or something.  
“I went...forward in time…” Dr. Strange gasps, “To view alternate futures. To see all the possible outcomes of the coming conflict.”  
Tony asks the question Peter was wondering, “How many did you see?”  
“14,000,605,” The doctor says, raising an eyebrow like he’s checking his math.  
Silence.  
Then Tony asks the other question Peter was wondering, “How many did we win?”  
The doctor looks up and takes a breath, “One.”

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Gamora watches as Thanos looks at the dark mountain. Then he turns to her.  
“The stone better be up there,” he says.  
You can do whatever you want to me, Gamora thinks.  
“For your sister’s sake,” he hisses.  
Gamora sucks in a breath and he pushes her forward. Nebula’s screams of pain still echo in her head and she winces, remembering the pain she caused her sister. They walk silently up the mountain, the air crisp and chilly, blowing her hair over her shoulders. Gamora refuses to shiver, slow down, or show any signs of weakness. Not for this monster. As they turn the corner Gamora sees a figure hovering off the ground, wrapped in darkness, a cloak billowing out behind him. The voice is as chilling as the man himself, “Welcome Thanos, son of Alars. Gamora, daughter of Thanos.”  
The voice is raspy and low, evil and seething, but it’s not a voice of an enemy, more like a threshold guardian.  
“You know us?” Gamora asks.  
“It is my curse to know all who journey here.”  
“Where is the soul stone?” Thanos asks.  
“You should know,” the man says softly, “it extracts a terrible price.”  
“I am prepared,” Thanos assures him, standing up straighter, and Gamora wants to throw up. Does he think he’s worthy? Does he think he’s a hero?  
“We all think that at first,” the man says before taking off his hood. His face is red and clearly scarred, with a piercing glare, and cold eyes, “We are all wrong.”  
“How is it you know this place so well?” Gamora asks, suspicious of this man as they all walk forward.  
“A lifetime ago, I, too, sought the stones. I even held one in my hand,” he seemed reminiscent and nostalgic, his voice lowering slightly, then getting more firm and angry, “But it cast me out, banished me here. Guiding others to a treasure I cannot possess.” He leads them forward and motions for the edge of the cliff that appears. Thanos walks forward.  
“What you seek lies in front of you. As does what you fear.”  
Thanos looks over the edge, his foot kicking a rock that falls off, “What’s this?”  
“The price,” the man answers, “Soul holds a special place among the Infinity Stones. You might say it has a certain wisdom. Tell me what it needs. To ensure that whoever possess it...understands its power…” the man is staring at Thanos directly, “the stone demands it’s sacrifice.”  
“Of what?” Thanos asks, looking over the ledge again. Gamora is tempted to run at him, carry him off the edge, feeling the satisfaction of him falling, with or without her, to their deaths. At least the world would be safe.  
But now he’s backed away from the edge as the man answers his question, “In order to take the stone, you must lose what you love. A soul, for a soul.”  
Thanos looks down.  
Gamora feels a laugh build up her throat and she lets it loose, shaking her head and grinning triumphantly at Thanos who is staring over the edge.  
“All my life,” she said, “I dreamed of a day, a moment...when you got what you deserved. And I was always so disappointed.” When she was little, she had no idea what he was; he had saved her and helped her, taught her to survive. But as she grew older, she realized what this man was- this monster. And when she saw what he did, how he killed, she knew one day she had to betray him. “But now, you kill and torture, and you call it mercy.”  
She stepped forward, “The universe has judged you. You asked it for a prize, and it told you no.” Gamora was smiling again, giddiness in her voice, “You’ve failed. And do you want to know why?” She had been waiting to say this her entire life.  
“Because you love nothing. No one.”  
Thanos’ voice was low and breaking, and she heard him whisper, “No.” He turns around and Gamora laughs again; he’s crying. The titan with 2 infinity stones is crying, tears sliding down his cheeks as he looks at her, completely heartbroken.  
“Really?” she mocks, “Tears?”  
The man from the side has been watching them and his eyes are on Thanos, but he addresses Gamora, “They’re not for him.”  
Gamora turns to Thanos, who is still crying. He looks at her sadly. It takes her a second, mostly because in her mind it’s impossible, but then she understands that the titan who she had once thought of as a father would stop at nothing...no one, to reach his goal, no matter how twisted the resolution was. Gamora realizes what that means and she freezes, her heart dropping low in her stomach. He walks forward, his gaze fierce. Gamora steps backward and she shakes her head, “No,” she whispers, “This isn’t love.”  
Thanos’ voice is broken, “I ignored my destiny once. I cannot do that again. Even, for you.”  
She looks up at him, locking eyes in hatred. No. She won’t let this happen. In a flash she has grabbed her knife from his belt and flicked it open, stabbing it into her stomach, but her hands are empty, and when she opens them, breathing hard, bubbles fly from her trembling fingers.  
Gamora can’t breath and she looks up, not able to turn around. She’s shaking, tears in her eyes, her heart shattered into a million pieces.  
“I’m sorry little one,” Thanos says in a rough voice.  
He won’t do it. He won’t. But he does.  
His hand clenches around her arm as Gamora turns in shock.  
“No!” She screams, grabbing his arm and pulling with all her might as he drags her towards the edge. Quill. She has to get back to Peter. She needs to see him again. That moment when he pulled the trigger against everything in his heart- that awful moment- that couldn’t be the last time she saw him. That kiss she shared with him on the ship, that couldn’t be their last kiss.  
Please God no-  
She hitting him as hard as she can, bruising his arm, kicking and fighting, screaming-  
She feels her feet hit the edge and she lets out a heartbroken scream, tears streaming down her cheeks. Quill, I love you Quill, she thinks-  
He throws her off the edge and Gamora feels herself fall, her feet leaving the ledge, her arms grasping nothing. She drops into midair. There’s an awful feeling in her stomach.  
No-  
But she’s falling, and nothing can stop her. She feels herself plummet, her head spinning, her tears whipped from her cheeks from the wind, her hair blown in front of her. She can still see him standing over the edge, and she knows he’s still crying. But this isn’t love. He didn’t love her. She reaches a hand up and screams, “No!”, but her voice is torn from her throat as she falls. She squeezes her eyes shut, a feeling she’s never felt before radiating through her chest. It’s pure fear. She’ll never see Quill again- his annoying smile and sense of humor. Never get to-  
Her friends, her family, her true family. She’ll never-  
Nothing can stop her from hitting the stone floor. Gamora feels an awful shattering of her body, her head and back hitting the cold-  
And then she doesn’t feel anything at all.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Steve looks out the window of the ship and says, “Drop to 2600, heading 0-3-0.”  
“I hope you’re right about this, Or we’re gonna land a lot faster than you want to.”  
He’s right. He’s memorized the flight pattern. He’s memorized a lot of things. He had a lot of free time while on the run. He missed his friends, and he’s missed the Avengers. They feel so separate right now, especially since Tony wasn’t here. Tony. Stark was a puzzle. Puzzle or not, Steve missed him. And the kid. Peter...he’s still mad that Peter got dragged into this. He knows that Tony is even more angry. Gosh those two…  
Steve has an awful feeling in his stomach that they all will never be in the same room together again. Thanos had been in his head for a while, in the back of his mind, but he figured he had enough time before things went south. He was wrong. And now he was here, and unavoidable, and his presence made Steve unsettled. He paces the ship before he finally realizes they’ve set down. He’s waiting by the back door, waiting for it to open and when it finally does he breathes in the Wakandian air. He steps off the ramp and walks down, smiling at T’challa who is walking toward him with a similar smile.  
He hears Bruce whisper behind him, “Should we bow?”  
“Yeah he’s a king,” Rhodes whispers, and Steve suppresses a smile before he grins at T’challa and shakes his hands.  
“Seems like I’m always thanking you for something,” Steve says.  
Bruce bows and Rhodey smacks his arm, “Dude, what are you doing?” Bruce looks at him in shock and grins, realizing he was kidding.  
“Uh we don’t do that here,” T’challa says. The Black Panther shakes his head and returns his gaze to Steve. He speaks firmly, “So how big of an assault should we expect?”  
Bruce stumbles forward and rambles awkwardly, “Uh, sir, I think you should expect quite a big assault.”  
“How are we looking?” Steve asks.  
“You will have my Kingsguard, the Border Tribe, the Dora Milaje, and…” T’challa grins and turns. Steve sees Bucky walking toward him.  
“And a semi-stable, 100 year old man,” Bucky grins, giving Steve a long overdue hug.  
Steve grips his arms, “How you doing Buck?”  
Bucky shrugs, “Uh, not bad, for the end of the world.”  
“Come. Shuri will take a look at the stone,” T’challa says and he leads them into the palace. They walk the flights of steps and Steve looks around in awe. This place never gets old.  
“The structure is polymorphic,” Shuri says. Steve gave the energetic girl a hug before she went right to work on looking at Vision who was lying on the table. Her eyes were dancing across multiple displays.  
“Right,” Banner says, one arm up and holding his glasses, his other arm tucked under his arm, folded over his chest, “We had to attach each neutron non-sequentially.”  
Shuri grins and looks at him like he’s a 5 year old, “Why didn’t you just reprogram the synapses to work collectively?”  
Silence. Bruce is about to say something, then he doesn’t. He stares at her, clearly embarrassed, and he stutters, “Uh, because we didn’t think of it?”  
“I’m sure you did your best,” Shuri says smugly and Steve would have cracked a smile had it not been for the circumstances.  
“Can you do it?” T’challa asks, putting a stop to the boasting that would have made Banner’s PHDs feel like child’s play.  
Shuri bites her lip and Steve holds his breath.  
“Yes,” she says slowly, “But there are more than 2 trillian neutrons here. One misalignment could cause a cascade of circuit failures. It will take time, brother.”  
“How long?” T’challa says, his arm crossed.  
“As long as you can give me,” Shuri says.  
Then there’s a crackle from T’challa’s comms, “Something’s entered the atmosphere.”  
Now Steve’s comms turn on, “Hey Cap, we’ve got a situation here!”  
He looks out the window and sees a massive ship in the shape of an arrow point come hurtling down towards the city, but it explodes against the dome. Blue ripples of vibranium make the ground shake as the dust clears. The ship was obliterated but Cap sees black dots descending from the sky outside the dome.  
He hears a sigh from the line, “God I love this place.”  
Then, “Yeah don’t start celebrating yet guys, we’ve got more incoming outside the dome.”  
Vision gets up weakly and shakes his head, “It’s too late. We need to destroy the stone now.”  
“Vision get back on that table,” Natasha snaps. Steve shoots her a look of gratitude. He had told Vision that they don’t trade lives. And he was being dead serious.  
“We’ll hold them off,” he said firmly before he turns, “Wanda, as soon as that stone is out of his head, blow it to you know where.”  
“I will,” Wanda nods.  
Rhodey grins at Steve, “You said that so none of us would say language right?”  
“Maybe,” Steve says.  
“Evacuate the city,” T’challa commands to his guards, “Engage all defenses. And get this man,” he points at Cap who stands proudly, ready to go down fighting, “A shield.”

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Rocket swoops with the ship, trying to catch Thor as he flies through space, his body burned and limp, both eyes closed.  
“No, no, no, no-” Rocket says, driving the pod even faster. His head still swam from being thrown around by Thor, but he forced himself to focus. How he was able to hold the force of a star, Rocket honestly didn’t know except for the fact that he was a god. He dives for Thor, only for a piece of the ring to smack into Thor’s chest, flipping him at a weird angle. Thor crashes to the ground, rolling and rolling before he stops, unmoving.  
“Crap,” Rocket sets the pod down quickly and jumps out, rushing over to Thor and falling over his knees. The god’s chest isn’t moving.  
“Thor!” Rocket shouts, afraid to touch the wounds, “Say something, come on.” He finally shakes the god by his chestplate, “Thor you okay?”  
Etri is rushing around behind him, pulling the metal to the ground. The mold shatters, leaving the red hot pieces of the axe.  
“I think he’s dying,” Rocket says sadly, a lump in his throat.  
“He needs the axe!” Etri roars, looking around, shoving stuff all over the place, “Where’s the handle?” His voice breaks and he commands Groot who’s in the corner, looking up from his game, “Tree, help me find the handle!”  
Groot gets up and walks over hesitantly. Rocket watches in awe as he looks at Etri, then at Rocket, then at the axe, and extends his branches. The tree hisses in pain as his arm touches the two pieces of burning-hot metal and slowly brings them together. He lifts it with effort, before letting out a small yell and bringing his other arm to slash his extended branch. His arm falls to the ground, the tree molded around the two as a perfect handle, and the sound of the metal hitting the ground echos through the ring. Rocket stares at the tree who grins at him weakly. Rocket’s about to compliment him, tell him how proud he is, when suddenly the ground starts shaking. The axe is sparking with electricity, and Rocket scrambles back as Thor’s body starts to zap as well. The light is almost blinding and Rocket raises his arm to block the glare. The axe raises on its own accord and flies forward, like it’s going to impale the god who is limp on the ground. But Thor’s eyes burst open, the sockets filled with electricity and his hand shoots up to grasp the handle.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Peter’s shaking. He doesn’t know what to expect. He’s fought a lot of enemies, seen a lot of messed of things, and heard a lot of corrupted plans from people who are wrong but think they’re right. Tony flies over to him after he’s done talking with Dr. Strange and grabs his shoulders, “Kid, kid, you okay?”  
Peter should’ve put up his mask, “Yeah, yeah I’m ok.”  
“If you get hurt, promise me you’ll stay out after that,” Tony said.  
“You know I can’t do that,” Peter said, looking Tony right in the eyes.  
Tony sighs and ruffles Peter’s hair, “Yeah I know. But I just needed to tell you again.”  
Peter nods, standing straighter, “Is this gonna work?”  
Tony looks down, then back at Peter before raising his eyebrows, “Mr. Lord seems to think so, right Quill?”  
Quill waves him off, crouched behind a boulder, ready and waiting.  
Tony cups Peter’s neck firmly, locking eyes with him. He doesn’t say anything; his eyes say it all.  
And Peter knows exactly what he’s saying. He nods. Tony nods back and then gives him a hug. Peter’s scared, he’s not gonna lie, but being in Tony’s arms made him feel safe. He just wished he got to hug him longer.  
But Tony pulled away and winked, “Gotta go, underoos. Be safe. Kick butt- or names as Mantis thinks.”  
Peter nods and smiles weakly before Tony blasts off. Peter’s mask encloses over his face and he says, “Karen?”  
“Yes Peter?”  
Peter doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t say anything for a while. Then he knows what he was going to tell her. He says one sentence. Just one. There’s silence.  
Then she says, “O-ok Peter.”  
He’s never heard her stutter before. Peter takes a breath. Quill winks at him from behind his boulder and nods. Peter flings himself to the top of the building, crouched and waiting. Peter looks around behind him, checking out his surroundings. Something catches his eye a little ways down. Hey, there’s another ship here! Maybe it’s Quill’s; they had taken a ship here. Peter had sworn that when talking about his ship, Quill had pointed in the other direction from where they were standing, but Peter must be just turned around. No one else was here. It was hidden behind some rocks, gleaming in the odd sunlight. Before Peter could mention it on comms, his spider senses tingle. The air ripples, a blue glow spreading across the ground. Smoke and dust swirl around and the portal widens and out of the black hole that just ripped it’s way onto this planet comes a man. The titan Thanos. And Tony wasn’t joking about this guy being the...crap. He’s tall, muscular, and giant, his purple form coated in gold armor, and a gauntlet on his hand with 4 infinity stones gleaming. 4 of them. Oh God.  
Peter peers over the edge as he approaches Dr. Strange who is sitting calmly on the steps below.  
“Oh yeah,” Dr. Strange says, “You’re much more of a Thanos.”  
Thanos matches his glare, “I take the Maw is dead.”  
Maw. What a weird name. It must have been that guy they killed on the ship.  
Dr. Strange smirks and nods his head, but it’s not in a mocking way.  
“This day,” the titan says, “Extracts a heavy toll. Still, he accomplished his mission.”  
“You may regret that. He brought you face-to-face with the master of the Mystic Arts.”  
“And where do you think he brought you?” Thanos asks, his voice surprisingly calm.  
“Let me guess,” Dr. Strange says cockilly, “Your home?”  
“It was,” Thanos says sadly and Peter hates that his voice makes him almost feel sympathetic. He had to remind himself that this man would kill him without a thought.  
“And it was beautiful,” Thanos says. The red stone on the gauntlet glows and suddenly the surroundings change, and Peter is met with a beautiful planet, blue skies and beautiful buildings, a replica of the planet, except everything was...alive. He sees Quill stumble back into hiding because the rubble he was crouched behind was no longer there. Thankfully Thanos’ back was turned and he didn’t see him. Quill gives Peter a thumbs up.  
“Titan was like most planets,” Thanos says, “Too many mouths, not enough to go around...and when we face extinction, I offered a solution.”  
“Genocide,” Dr. Strange practically spat, clearly not phased by this show Thanos was putting on.  
Thanos raises his eyebrows, “A random, dispassionate, fair, to rich and poor alike. They called me a madman,” Thanos said softly, and then his tone became harsh, “And what I predicted came to pass.”  
Red peeled away and Peter was left staring at the new planet, orange and dusty, broken and deserted...destroyed.  
“Congratulations,” The wizard mocked, “You’re a prophet.”  
“I’m a survivor,” The titan corrected.  
“Who wants to murder trillions,” Dr. Strange said angrily.  
“With all 6 stones, I could simply snap my fingers. They would all cease to exist. I call that mercy,” the titan said.  
Peter nearly choked. Mercy. He called that mercy?  
“And then what?” the wizard asks.  
“I’d finally rest...and watch the sunrise on a grateful universe. The hardest choices require the strongest wills.”  
Dr. Strange stands and he smirks, “I think you’ll find our will,” he slams his fists together, “equal to yours.”  
Thanos’ brow furrows and he asks, “Our?”  
Peter had seen the big chunk of building looming over him and now it was dropping. He could see Tony on the top, his repulsors blazing, forcing the rock to drop at even faster speeds. The titan barely had time to look up as it slams into him, a shockwave shaking the ground. Tony wobbles midair and stabilizes himself.  
“Woooo!” Peter shouts, pumping his fists on the top of the building. That wasn’t so hard.  
“Piece of cake, Quill,” Tony shouts. Peter grins in his mask, still on the top of the building.  
“Yeah if your goal was to piss him off!” Quill shouts.  
Just then the whole piece of building cracks and glows purple before it explodes. The mad titan is unscathed, yelling in anger. The purple stone had been glowing but then the titan clenches his fist and the red stone comes to life. He swipes his arm and the remains of the shattered building fly at Tony in a swarm.  
Peter hears his dad cry out as he gets overwhelmed and shoved backward. Tony’s repulsors fire up as he tries to get away from the swarm. Peter’s voice gets caught in his throat as he yells, “Tony!” He jumps up but he’s too far away and Peter swings himself off the ledge, diving toward the titan. He shoots a web right at his eye and it makes a direct hit. The titan stumbles back and Peter swoops by, punching him in the face. Drax slides underneath him and slices at Thanos’ legs with a blade but it doesn’t even scratch him.  
Peter does a loop, landing on the building and looking for Tony. He doesn’t see him. What he does see is Dr. Strange and Drax fighting Thanos, and Quill is diving toward him with his rocket boots. Thanos kicks Drax in the chest and he flies backward. Quill jumps on rocks, gaining momentum, running toward Dr. Strange. Thanos rips Peter’s web off his face and breaks the wizard’s yellow stick he had been fighting with. He kicks Dr. Strange who blocks it weakly with a yellow circle spell that disintegrates before he looks up. Quill shoots the titan in the back, getting closer and Dr. Strange throws out these disks for him to jump on. Quill bounces on them like Mario and does a flip, clipping something on Thanos’ back and landing on two feet.  
He shouts, “Boom!” and gives Thanos the middle finger before falling backward into the portal that Dr. Strange had opened up. The titan is about to shoot at him when the beeping device Quill had put on his back explodes, pushing him forward, electricity zapping.  
This is when Peter makes his move, as Dr. Strange sends his cloak tight around Thanos’ hand. Peter spirals off the building into a portal and comes out falling down right on top of Thanos. He curves his body and punches the titan in the face, shouting, “Magic!”  
“More magic!” Peter shouts, grabbing the Titan’s armor on his back and flipping around, his feet sinking into Thanos’ stomach before he launches himself off.  
Another portal, this time opening on the other side, “Magic with a kick!” Peter lets himself fall into the ground that opens up after slamming his heel into Thanos’ head.  
“Magic with a-” Peter yells, prepared to slam his fist right into the back of the titan’s head. But Thanos turns, predicting where he’s going to be and grabs his throat, cutting off Peter’s cry. The hand tightens and Peter chokes, kicking his legs. The titan snarls before he slams Peter to the floor, his back cracking the ground, making dust fly up. Peter screams in pain, still struggling to get out of the iron grip around his neck.  
“PETE!” comes a yell from the comms.  
“Insect,” the titan spits, looming over him before he picks him up and hurls Peter at the wizard.  
Tony lets out a strangled scream through the comms.  
Peter cries out again, one from being thrown, and two as he collides with Dr. Strange and goes flying, tumbling to a stop in a pile of rubble. Peter grasps the ground, breathing hard, his head swimming. It hurt so much- it wasn’t supposed to hurt that much.  
“Don’t touch my kid!” He hears Tony yell and Peter looks up weakly, hearing missiles fly. Iron Man swoops in above Peter, and the bombs explode against the titan, creating a massive fireball in front of Peter who slowly gets to his feet, grasping his side.  
But then to his horror, an angry yell comes from the center of the fireball and the titan is visible now, his hand clenched into a fist, and he roars as all the fire is sucked somehow into a ball and he lets it loose in a fury torrent, a beam right for his dad. Peter watches it shoot forward and hit Tony right in the chest as he makes his loop back around. Tony goes flying, blasted backward.  
“No!” Peter yells and he jumps up, shooting a web at Tony’s foot and pulling with all of his might. But then there’s a dark shadow looming over him and Peter sees a ship come out of the sky, heading right for him- no for Thanos, but Peter just happens to be in the way. He’s forced to let go of the web and jump out of the way as it crashes right into Thanos, knocking him off his feet. Peter scrambles up, looking for Tony who’s fall was slowed thanks to Peter. He turns back and sees the titan getting up underneath a slab of rubble, and a woman lunges out of the pod that had just smacked him into the ground.  
She lets out a raspy yell and throws herself at Thanos, hitting him across the face. She’s half human, half mechanical, but she’s not on Thanos’ side, which makes her an ally.  
He smiles at her and Peter realizes they know each other.  
The titan grins, “Well well.”  
“You should have killed me,” she snarls.  
“It would have been a waste of parts!” he spits.  
She yells in anger and goes for him again and Peter watches, not knowing what to do as they fight. She slides to her knee and yells, “Where’s Gamora?”  
Thanos yells and hits her in the chest and she flies backward, arms windmilling backward as she crashes to the ground.  
Then Peter looks up and sees Dr. Strange shoot these weird vine things and they wrap around Thanos’ gauntlet. He tightens them, pulling as hard as he can and Drax slides forward, kicking the back of Thanos’ knee, causing him to drop. Quill, who is balancing on one of the floating rocks behind the titan, levels his gun and shoots one of the triangle vacuum things. It engulfs Thanos’ other hand and yanks him the other way, his arms spread apart. Peter jumps forward, webbing Thanos’ arm and swinging himself around, pulling with all of his might. His feet are sliding forward and his spider legs spread out and clamp into the ground, increasing his strength. Peter grits his teeth, pulling even harder. Tony flies in and drops to the ground, yanking the gauntlet as hard as he can. Dr. Strange releases the vine things and waves his hands in the air. He opens a portal above Thanos’ head and Mantis drops from it, landing on the titan’s shoulders and putting her hands on the sides of his head. Her antennae glow and the titan roars.  
Peter groans, leaning backward, his forehead beaded with sweat within the mask as he pulls on his web, bending his legs. Dr. Strange shoots the red vines again, pulling with Peter. Peter cries out, bending down and pulling harder, the legs digging into the stone ground. Drax is yanking Thanos’ leg the other way and he too lets out a cry of anger. The titan lets out another roar and Mantis whimpers, her legs tight around his throat, her eyes closed in concentration, her brow furrowed. Then the titan relaxes, and with his heightened eyesight, Peter sees a glaze come over his eyes as they slowly roll into the back of his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stay tuned for next chapter! <3 Hope you all enjoyed!


	4. We're in the Endgame Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry I didn't get a chance to post yesterday.   
> Enjoy today's chapter though, I hope you like it! It's a long one :) <3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From where we left off to that iconic line that reveals the next movie's title: We're in the endgame now.

T’challa is on the ship, and they are moving forward to the barrier.   
“How are we looking, Bruce?” Steve asks next to him, wearing the two vibranium arm shields he had given him.  
“Yeah, I think I’m getting the hang of it. Wow! This is amazing, man. It’s like being the Hulk without actually-” Bruce babbles, encased in a massive suit of Iron Man armor. Steve said Tony had named it Veronica. Bruce trips on a rock and falls forward, hitting the ground. T’challa fights a smile. He sees Okoye look at Bruce in disdain.  
Bruce picks grass and dirt off the helmet and mutters, “I’m okay, I’m okay.”  
“I’ve got 2 heat signatures breaking through the tree line,” Rhodey announces.   
T’challa nods and turns to his friend. He clasps the hand of M’baku who had just finished leading a chant that echoed down the valley, “Thank you for standing with us.”  
He leads Natasha and Steve down to the edge of the barrier where two people meet them, separated by a wall of vibranium.   
“Where’s your other friend?” Natasha asks cockily. T’challa knows she and Cap recognize them.   
The woman snarls, “You will pay for his life with yours. Thanos will have the stone.”  
“That’s not going to happen. You are in Wakanda now,” T’challa says firmly, “Thanos will have nothing but dust and blood.”  
The woman turns to him, her cold eyes piercing and furious, “Luckily, we have blood to spare.” She raises her sword with a grunt and the ground trembles.   
Steve is first to turn away and walk back to the ranks and T’challa follows him.   
Bucky asks, “Did they surrender?”  
T’challa shoots him a look. Steve’s face is stern and he shakes his head, “Not exactly.”  
“HIBAMBE!” T’challa shouts. His troops echo him, a roar overtaking the valley, “HIBAMBE!” Staffs hit the floor in unison as the chant makes the ground shake and the air tense. It’s less than a minute before the first of the beasts break through and hit the barrier.  
“What the heck?” Bucky whispers.   
The monsters have many legs, teeth and claws and they pile on top of one another, scratching and biting as they try and break the vibranium wall.   
“Looks like we pissed her off.”  
T’challa watches in horror as the beasts throw themselves at the weakening barrier, pulling themselves through and collapsing, dead and burned.   
“They’re killing themselves,” Okoye says breathlessly, her face tight.  
The first of the beasts make it past the barrier without dying, but T’challa can see a growing dark mob right in the center. His mouth is in a tight line as he watches the beasts scramble forward, unhinged and rabid. The ranks next to him all put up their shields with a battle cry.   
“You see the teeth on those things?” comes a shout from the comms.   
“Alright, back up, Sam,” Rhodey says in the comms, “You’re gonna get your wings singed.”  
T’challa sees the entrance blown up as Rhodes makes a pass, dropping bombs. A large fireball explodes at the foot of the domb, completely obliterating any beast that made its way in.  
T’challa then sees a group of beasts running along the side.   
Rhodey says what T’challa is thinking, “Cap, if these things circle the perimeter, and get in behind us...there’s nothing between them and Vision.”  
Roger’s voice is firm, “Then we better keep ‘em in front of us.” He shares a look with T’challa who nods. It’s the only way.   
“How do we do that?”  
T’challa raises his wrist, “On my signal, open North-West section 17.”   
“Requesting confirmation, my king. You said open the barrier?”  
“On my signal,” T’challa repeats.   
“This will be the end of Wakanda,” M’baku says sadly.   
T’challa hates the fact that he knows he very well may be right. But it’s better than the end of the universe.   
“Then it will be the noblest ending in...in history,” Okoye says with effort, choking on her words.   
T’challa takes a deep breath and puts his hands across his chest, his claws coming out.   
His mask goes over his head as he yells, “WAKANDA FOREVER!” 

Peter tugs on his web hard, not letting up even though the titan was weakened.   
Tony yells, “Is he under? Don’t let up!”  
Mantis is shaking and she cries, “Be quick! He is very strong.”  
Tony flies over and starts yanking the gauntlet. His helmet’s eyes lock with Peter’s and Iron Man nods, motioning him over, “Parker help! Get over here. She can’t hold him much longer. Let’s go.”  
Peter ties his web does and runs over, helping Tony pull. Peter lets out a determined yell as he pulls, feeling the gauntlet slowly slide towards them.   
“We’ve got to open his fingers to get it off,” Tony says to Peter who tries his best to spread out the metal hand, groaning with effort.  
Quill flies over and lands, his rocket boots powering down and he does a sort of skip over, a smug grin on his face, “Thought you’d be hard to catch. For the record this is my plan. Not so strong now huh?” He gets up right in the face of Thanos and snarls, “Where’s Gamora?”  
“My...Gamora…” Thanos murmurs.   
Quill’s face screws up and he mutters, “No, bull-” His face is tight in angry glare, “Where is she?!”  
Peter’s still pulling, but he hears Mantis sniffle on top of Thanos and he looks up and sees she’s crying.   
“He is in anguish,” Mantis says, tears streaming down her cheeks.  
“Good,” Quill says angrily, looking back at the titan.   
“He...he mourns…” She sobs.   
“What does this monster,” Drax gasps, still pulling on his leg, “Have to mourn?”  
“Gamora,” the blue woman says. Peter forgot she was there.   
“What?” Quill says breathlessly, turning around.   
The woman’s face has no emotion. Her voice is low and raspy, “He took her to Vormir. He came back with the Soul Stone. But she didn’t.”  
Peter chokes. No...not Gamora. His heart stops. No...He looks at Tony who still has the Iron Man helmet on. He looks at Quill and his back is turned, still looking at the blue woman, but his hand holding the gun is shaking.   
Peter can’t breathe. He doesn’t want to believe it. Gamora...she was always nice to him, gave him a hug goodbye, smiled at him...she couldn’t be…  
And Peter had only known her for a little while, but he considered her family. Quill though...  
Quill turns, his face full of shock and anger, his glare on the titan. Peter and Tony are still yanking on the glove.   
“Come on, come on-” Peter hisses, pulling harder. He feels like things are gonna go south. His mask comes off and he sobs, “Quill wait-” He groans in effort, still pulling on the gauntlet.   
Tony’s mask recedes to his neck. His gaze is fearful and he says, “Okay Quill, you gotta cool it right now. You understand? Don’t. Don’t. Don’t engage. We’ve almost got this off!” Tony screams at Quill who is unmoving, staring at the titan.   
“Tell me she’s lying,” Quill says softly before he raises his voice and yells, “Tell me you didn’t do it!”  
“I...had...to…” Thanos breaths out.   
“No you didn’t,” Quill says quietly, shaking his head, “No you didn’t.” Tears come to his eyes, and his voice sounded like someone had just shattered his heart. But in reality, Thanos did.  
Peter’s crying within his mask, his shoulders heaving, tears streaming down his face. He can’t bear to look at Quill’s expression. He’s pulling as hard as he can against the gauntlet.   
“Ahhhh!” Quill screams, his eyes flashing and he brings back his arm, “NO YOU DIDN”T!”  
He smashes the gun down, once, twice, screaming in anger. Mantis cries out in pain as Quill hits her hand and Thanos’ face with his gun on the third hit. He hits Thanos again, right in the face, screaming inaudible things, just heartbroken, shattered, angry, sad screams that only make Peter cry harder.   
“Quill!” Tony shouts, diving forward and grabbing his arm, “Hey! Stop, stop!”  
Peter pulls the gauntlet harder to make up for the loss of Tony who’s struggling to retain Quill who’s fighting him off.   
“Hey, stop! Stop!” Tony yells at him.   
Peter’s yanking and yanking, desperate now, and he gasps out, “It’s coming, it’s coming, I got it, I got it-”  
Then Thanos tenses and he throw back his head, hitting Mantis in the face. Just as Peter gets the gauntlet off the titan’s head turns and he grabs the edge of it, yanking it away from Peter who falls hard on his back, sliding a few feet. Thanos reaches up and hurls Mantis off and Peter scrambles to his feet, yelping, “Oh God,” as he swings to catch her. He spirals through the air and slams into her, grabbing Mantis around the waist. He holds her tight as they fall and his spider legs spread out, enclosing around him bouncing them off the ground before finally coming to a stop. Mantis hangs limply from his arms.   
“Thank you Peter,” she says weakly.   
“Yeah, yeah, no problem,” he says, setting her down so she can catch her breath.   
He asks, “You sure?”  
“I think so,” Mantis says, rubbing her head.   
Peter looks back at the fight and holds out his hand, “Come on!”

Steve whirls and fights, back to back with T’challa, flipping and slashing with his shields. He punches and kicks, but even he knows he’s going to get overwhelmed. But it was the only way to keep them away from Vision who was still in the tower. He hears T’challa speak into his comms, “How much longer Shuri?”  
Cap doesn’t hear her response, but he can guess what she said because T’challa seems deflated and he yells, “You might want to pick up the pace!”  
Cap flings himself forward, stabbing his shield into one of the monsters. T’challa pulses with purple energy and 5 of them are immediately blown back from him. He spins and punches on in the throat, wincing as its teeth come so close to his face. Cap whirls again, slashing with his shields, getting on top of one and then rolling off as another lunges forward. Steve scrambles to his feet only to get knocked down and this time he can’t get up. He yells to T’challa, only to look and see that he’s overwhelmed as well. Cap yells, pushing the snarling beast away from his face, blocking the swipes from the arms with his shields. His vision is going blurry and he hears Bruce yell from the comms, “There’s too many of them!”  
“Buck!” Steve yells, seeing him in the same position as Cap is, pinned down, holding a slashing and snarling monster away from his throat. Cap yells again, punching the beast off only for 2 more to jump on and Cap kicks his legs, knowing he can’t keep this up forever. He sees Veronica covered in a pile of the monsters, and Rhodey’s knocked out of the sky. T’challa pulses and the monsters on him are thrown off, but two times the original amount take their place. Cap feels a slash on his side and he yells in pain, twisting and thrashing on the ground, but his movements are sluggish. Just then there’s a rumble and Cap can barely see the sky through the teeth and snarls, but the bright light would have been visible to a blind person. It shatters the ground and explodes, throwing hundreds back. Steve struggles to his feet and sees T’challa, Bucky, Bruce, and Rhodes have done the same. Cap squints at the colorful rainbow beam that slowly fades away and leaves a burned mark on the ground. 3 people are standing in the light, and cap knows every single one of them.   
Cap grins as Thor walks out, a new haircut, red cape and all, with Rocket and Groot at his side, ready for battle.   
“You guys are so screwed now!” Bruce shouts happily.   
Thor’s eyes spark and he’s holding an axe in his hand, practically radiating electricity. He turns to the next wave of beasts approaching. The sky turns dark, lighting crackling through the clouds. Thor roars, “BRING ME THANOS!” The god jumps into the air, everything around him sparking blue and he brings the axe down on the ground, blowing the first 100 beasts backward. The ground trembles and Cap joins him as they launch themselves into battle.  
Steve finds himself back to back with Thor about 10 minutes later and he finally gets to say hi.  
“New haircut?” Steve says, out of breath. He hasn’t seen the guy in 3 years, but he knows his blonde hair is no longer a thing; now it’s in a brown buzz cut.  
“Noticed you’ve copied my beard,” Thor grins and raises his eyebrows, guestering to Steve’s chin.   
Steve nods and shrugs.  
“By the way,” Thor gestures to Groot who has stuck a branch through 3 snarling and now dying beasts, “this is a friend of mine, Tree.”  
Steve grins, “Hi Groot.”  
“You two know each other?” Thor says, shocked.  
Steve nods, “It’s a long story. For another time.”  
“I am Groot!” Groot says.   
“Don’t know what that means,” Cap says.  
“I do. And you would not like it Rogers,” Thor says before blasting himself up.   
“Good talk Thor,” Steve grins. Man, he’s missed that guy.   
Cap tackles a beast off of a Wakandan soldier and slashes his shield. He goes for another only to hear a noise behind him. Teeth stop an inch from his face as a tree root wraps around the beast that’s slashing at Steve, and chucks him into the sky. Groot raises his eyebrows at him.   
Steve gives him a thumbs up, “Thanks.”

Rocket yells, just shooting anything that moves and doesn’t look human.   
“Ahhhhhhhhh!” He says, totally trigger happy, “Come and get some space dogs!”  
Bucky is right next to him and suddenly he feels the Winter Soldier grab Rocket’s vest and pick him up. The beasts have enclosed them in a circle and Rocket fumbles for his gun a bit before he realizes what Buck’s doing. Nice. He’d be happy to oblige.  
Rocket cocks his gun and thinks, Oh yeah. He pulls the trigger as Bucky spins around and they create a sort of bullet mary go round. Rocket doesn’t even have to aim he just screams, “Come on! Get some! Get some! Come! Get some!”  
Bucky lets him drop finally, about 20 beasts dead in a perfect circle and Rocket adjusts his vest, grinning up at the soldier. Then he asks, “How much for the gun?”  
Bucky takes another beautiful shot and grumbles, “Not for sale.”  
Rocket sighs and shoots a beast before he changes his question, “Okay, how much for the arm?”  
Bucky shoots him a look and shakes his head, firing away.   
“I’ll get that arm,” Rocket promises himself under his breath. He reloads his gun, before he turns and sees Groot smashing 5 beasts against the floor repeatedly. He figures he’ll stop but he doesn’t and Rocket finally shouts, “You idiot! They’re dead! They’ve been dead!”  
“I am Groot!” The tree yells, retracting its branches.   
“Bull! You did make sure! You’ve probably been smashing them for 5 minutes!”  
“I am Groot,” Groot shouts at him.   
“Hey!” Rocket yells, seeing Steve fighting a couple feet away, “Cap doesn’t like that kind of talk.”  
“Rocket,” Steve greets him when he has a second to look away from the battle.   
Rocket shoots a beast over Steve’s shoulder and grins, “Cap.”  
Rocket takes some circular things from his belt and yells at Rhodey who’s swooped down to take a few beasts out, “Throw these!”  
Rhodey catches them and chucks them toward the entrance. A huge fireball erupts and Rhodey comes back down, his helmet flipping up.   
He yells, “You had those in your pocket?”  
“Yeah I-” Rocket is about to shout back when suddenly on the other side of the battlefield the ground erupts and these massive mechanical wheels shoot out of the ground, towering above them.  
“Holy-” Rocket gasps, backing up.   
“Fall back!” He hears a man yell. But it’s too late. People are already getting crushed. The wheels are heading for the tower and Rocket’s shuffling through his belt to see if he has any more explosives that could take out the massive machines. Bucky’s giving him cover. Rocket can’t find any more; the closest thing he’s got is the one to blow up moons, and he thinks that’s a little much.   
Then suddenly the machines are lifted off the ground, still spinning and crumpled a bit by Wanda who had just landed in front of them. Halfway across the field Rocket can still see her eyes red, hands outstretched, and she effortlessly raises her hands up, twisting her fingers as grass and dirt drop from the machines hovering in midair. It’s got to be a bajillion tons or something! She slams her hands down and the wheels smash into the coming waves of beasts, digging up the grass. Bucky and Rocket stare in shock. She just took out a third of the oncoming enemies.   
“Wouldn’t hurt if she could do that again,” Bucky grumbles, still firing.   
“Why was she up there?” Rocket splutters. 

Vision got kicked in the chest and he tumbles head over heels, staggering to his feet only to get backhanded by the clasp, in the same spot. He hits the ground hard and gasps, blinking as his body shakes with pain. The 2 men close in and Vision struggles to get on his hands and knees let alone his feet. Just then a huge machine jumps in front of him, the same colors as Tony’s suit and he hears Banner’s voice from inside, “Oh, no, oh no you don’t. This isn’t gonna be like New York, pal. This suit’s already kicked the crap outta the Hulk.”  
Vision breathes a sigh of relief, that is, until the man with the metal weapon grabs the machine’s arm and clicks the clamp into place before blasting them away.   
Vision hears Banner yell, “What? No! No-!” before they fly out of sight.   
Vision moves sluggishly out of the way as the staff comes down but the monster whips it around and it knocks Vision in the side. He stumbles back and attacks with the stone, a beam shooting from his forehead but the man blocks it with his staff and swipes Vision’s feet out from under him. Vision falls hard and he sees the sharp point glint in the sunlight but he can’t block the staff- he’s too late-   
The blade sinks right into Vision’s side and he chokes as the monster grabs his chin, glaring down at him. Vision feels himself fading and glitching, his eyes wide as he tries to intake air.   
“I thought you were formidable machine. But you’re dying,” the man snarls, pushing the blade in further, “like any man.”  
He yanks the knife out and Vision lets out a choked gasp, falling weak to the ground, unable to move. He lets out a breath, pain causing his body to tense up. The monster snarls, his cloak billowing behind him and he lowers to Vision’s level, snarling.  
Just then Steve breaks through the tree line and sprints, his arms and legs a blurr, tackling the man.   
“Get out of here!” Cap yells, slashing with his arm shields, once, twice, “Go!”  
Vision knows he can’t leave. He gets to his feet and grasps for the spear the man had dropped, clutching it in his hands. His other hand grips his side as he stumbles away, getting behind the monster. He grips the weapon in his hands and limps forward. The man has pulled out a knife, batting Steve’s shield away and now has raised it over Cap’s head, ready to bring it down. Vision stabs the blade right through the man’s chest, lifting it up with as much effort he has and twisting him off Cap. The monster lets out a roar and chokes, looking down at the blade poking out of his chest. He collapses and Vision almost does as well but he manages to go over and help Steve up before he falls against him. Steve catches him with his strong arms and glares at him, “I thought I told you to go.”  
Vision smiles weakly before he looks Steve right in the eyes.  
“We don’t trade lives Captain.”

Peter swinging as fast as he can, and he drops Mantis off a little ways back. He sees Tony go for Thanos with a blue sword thing but he can’t even make contact with the titan who catches his arm and headbutts him. Tony flails, skittering against the ground before he slides to a stop, looking up. Quill, the blue lady, and Drax all rush at Thanos, up from a previous fall that Peter wasn’t there to see. Thanos shoots a blast with the power stone, and a purple blow knocks them off their feet and knocking them unconscious as well. Peter throws himself forward but Thanos shoots another blast and it catches Peter’s shoulder as he tries to dodge. He hits the ground hard but gets to his feet, ready to strike again, when he sees Thanos’ hand up and clenched into a fist. Peter looks up at the sky and sees a freaking moon spiraling toward them, dropping out of the sky. Rocks are raining down and Peter jumps aside, shocked as the first one hits.   
“Tony!” Peter yells.  
“Go kid!” Tony screams, “Help them!” His boosters fire up as he tries to dodge the flying rocks.  
Peter hates himself, but he backs away before he realizes what Tony means by: help them. When the first meteors hit, Peter doesn’t really know what happens. The ground is tossed up somehow, the world breaking and flipping, and Peter goes flying, launched into the sky. He sees Quill, Drax and the blue lady fly up into the air and Peter does a flip, landing on the nearest rock and screaming, “Karen! Give me something!”  
“On it!” Karen says. A pattern appears on his display. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Tony try and fly up, only to smack into the actual moon. The moon doesn’t slow down as it pummlets to the rocky bed below.  
“NO!” Peter screams, watching as it hits the ground, dust flying up, crushing Tony underneath. “DAD!” Peter yells, in shock and terror. No, no, no, no-  
“Peter-” Karen warns. Peter bites his lip, forcing the tears away and spirals off the rock. He catches Mantis first, his spider legs coming out as he webs her and jumps through the air, pushing off rocks. He sees a big chunk of building flying towards them and he flings Mantis up, flipping through the middle before catching her again, webbing her back and swinging over to a solid piece of rock that’s falling, but slower.  
“I got you!” He shouts before turning and grabbing Quill who’s limp in the air, “I’ve got you!” He shoots a web through a spiral and pulls the blue lady toward him, grabbing all 3, “Sorry, I don’t know your name-”  
Drax is falling and Peter shouts, “No!” He jumps for him and catches him with one arm, flinging him back up and sticking him to the whole group. Peter lets out small cries of determination and groans as he lets each one drop, shooting web grenades and spider webs, hand over hand, his mind whirling, Karen telling him where to jump, where to lunge. Peter’s exhausted, but he’s gotten all 4 down safely in one pile, all next to each other, a foot off the ground because of webs. Peter swings back and forth, knocking away any falling rocks before he himself himself, falling flat on his stomach and sliding to a stop right at the feet of his four unconscious friends. He groans and gets to his feet before he hears Karen scream in his ears.   
“Peter above you!”  
Peter barely has time to look before he sees a huge slab of a building crashing down on them. There’s no time to move everyone and even if he could, there’s no way he could carry all of them-  
Peter doesn’t know what else to do but try and catch it. He puts up his hands and braces, the spider legs spreading out around him. When he first feels the slab make contact with his hands, Peter almost blacks out- that’s how heavy it is. He almost falls down, letting the rock crush them all, but he somehow stays standing. Peter yells in pain and grits his teeth, willing the mask to recede so he can breathe properly. He lets out another yell as it slowly pushes him further to the ground. His feet make cracks. Peter blinks, trying to clear his dizziness. It’s so close to touching Quill whom Peter is stopping the rock from crushing. Peter lets out another scream, his legs trembling, his body ready to buckle and he’s shaking. He squeezes his eyes shut.  
It’s too similar...way to similar-   
His mind goes back to the building he was trapped under.   
“Hello?! Please! Hey! I’m down here! I’m stuck- I can’t move, I can’t-”  
Peter lets out a cry and forces the memory away. Tony couldn’t help him now. Peter had to do this. He had to. He couldn’t die. He couldn’t let his friends die. He looks at Quill and Mantis and Drax and the other lady and realizes he can’t afford to let this drop. Peter didn’t care about himself, he cared about his friends. He had a chance to save them. He was not about to screw that up. And Tony...Tony needed him. Peter lets out another yell as his arms burn, but takes a breath, still trembling. The spider legs threaten to crack under the weight.   
“Come on Peter,” he mumbles, his head swimming. He feels like he’s on fire. It burns! It hurts, oh God it hurts… “Come on, Peter,” he says again, shaking under the weight, “Come on, Spiderman…” His arms feel like they’re being shredded and Peter’s chest hurts with every breath he takes. He blinks, trying to focus and slowly tries to raise himself, his legs screaming in pain.   
“Come on Spiderman!” He lifts the rock some more and now he can see ahead of him, although his vision is mostly bright white, he can still make out Dr. Strange fighting Thanos alone. Peter lets out another scream, his voice breaking and cracking, but this time that wakes Quill up and he sits up, nearly bumping his head on the rock before his eyes find Peter’s wide and fearful, yet determined and Quill springs into action.   
“Hang on kid!” Quill yells and he starts dragging Mantis and the other woman out from underneath, moving as fast as he can in a crouched jog.  
Peter’s shaking, not knowing how long he can hold it and he yells, “Hurry up Quill! Please- I can’t-”  
Quill shoves them out before he crawls back under to grab Drax, dragging him out too.   
Then he comes back in, putting up his hands like he’s going to try and help Peter hold the weight of the massive rock.   
“No!” Peter yells, “Go Quill! Get out!”  
“I’m not leaving you kid!” Quill shouts at him.   
“You can’t hold it!” Peter groans, straining, his legs starting to buckle. He squeezes his eyes shut.   
Quill’s eyes go back and forth and he shouts, “Neither can you! Hold on!” He pulls something out of his belt and clicks a button. The small device starts beeping.   
He grabs Peter around the waist and fires up his rocket boots, still keeping them in place. Peter’s still holding most of the weight and he shouts, “What are you doing?”  
“When I say, push up as hard as you can!” Quill yells.   
“I am!” Peter says, his voice cracking.   
“I need you to give me everything Pete, ok? Everything you’ve got!” Quill shouts.  
Peter nods, about to go unconscious, saving his energy for a final push up.   
The beeping gets faster and he hears Quill yell, “Now!”  
Peter lets out a yell of pain and anger and shoves himself upward with all of his strength, the spider legs cracking from the force. An explosion sounds behind them when the beeping finally becomes one solid pitch but they’re already shooting forward toward daylight as the rock starts to fall with nothing holding it up. Peter and Quill barely make it out; the edge of the rock clips Quill’s rocket boot and they go sprawling. Peter wraps himself around Quill, making sure his suit takes most of the hits before he finally loses his grip and they go flying in different directions. Peter gasps on the ground, his muscles screaming, about to blackout. His mind is swimming and Peter can’t move. Quill comes limping over and he drops to his side, a cut on the side of his head, “Kid! Pete you ok?”  
“Yeah,” Peter gasps, able to move slightly now, his vision coming back. His ears are ringing and he feels like his muscles have been shredded. He blinks, gulping down air, “Tony- where’s Tony, where’s my dad-”

Tony slams his fist and knee onto the ground, a perfect landing and he straightens, facing off against the titan.   
“You throw another moon at me,” Tony swears, “And I’m gonna lose it.”  
“Stark,” Thanos greets him with a smile.   
“You know me?” Tony asks, his tone threatening.   
“I do,” the titan nods, “You’re not the only one cursed with knowledge.”  
Tony shakes his head and snarls, “My only curse is you.” 6 triangle shaped explosives fly out of the back of his suit, heading right for Thanos.   
The titan braces, roaring, “Come on!”  
The explosion is big, but Tony knows it’s not big enough. He flies forward, trying to catch the titan off guard but gets hit right in the chest, blown backward. Thanos rips the Iron Man gauntlet off of the gauntlet and shoots a blast of purple that Tony blocks with a shield, but it’s deteriorating right before his eyes. Purple fire surrounds him and Tony groans from the force. He’s blown backward about 20 feet before his repulsors kick in, pushing back, but despite his efforts, he’s losing that battle; he feels his armor start to chip off. He shoves the shield away, diverting the blast and flies at the titan, bringing his leg across his body and smacking it into the titan. It clams around the gauntlet and locks it to the ground. Tony twists, letting out a yell of anger, before he wills his arm to build up with some nano tech and he slams it across the titan’s face.   
Thanos’ head whips to the side and the titan brings his finger up to brush a tiny cut on the side of his face. A small smear is on his finger. He looks at Tony mockingly and mutters, “All that for a drop of blood.”  
Tony lets out a roar of anger before he stumbles back, regains his balance, and dives forward yet again, hitting Thanos in the stomach and flipping off. He lands perfectly and Thanos, angry now, lumbers forward but Tony’s ready and he hits him in the chest with two metal fists, throwing him backward into a rock. Thanos reacts faster than Tony expected and he feels the titan’s hand grip his head and yank his mask off. Tony’s display disappears and he looks up in shock, his face exposed. Another helmet instantly covers his head, but the minute his display returns he sees a fist coming at him and it hits him in the face. Tony yells in pain and falls, hitting the ground hard. He raises his gaze only to see the titan grab his foot and flip him. Tony flails in the air, smacking into the ground again, his head slamming into the ground with a nauseating crack. Thanos has the upper hand now, crouched over him, his fists connecting with Tony’s helmet again and again. Side of the head, other side of the head, right in the face, neck, shoulder, side of the head-   
Tony had put up his arms to block the first one but the next hit dazes him and Tony can’t even think straight through all of the blows let alone raise an arm to protect himself. He doesn’t even have time to take a breath before the next hit comes and Tony wills his brain to function and his arm to move to block the punches but finds he can’t, disoriented as his head whips side to side and pain flares up throughout his body. He can’t breathe, his head spinning, hearing metal and knuckle crunch as his suit dents, crushing into his skin. Then Thanos grabs Tony by his helmet and Tony kicks his feet, trying to loosen the grasp, but he can’t see what’s going on- can’t see that Thanos has closed his fist and is now bringing the gauntlet forward to connect with his chest, a purple stone glowing. He feels it though.   
It hits him hard and Tony goes flying, his breath knocked out of him as he tries to breath. He gets up and tries to fight back but the fist is there again, and it hits him right across the face. Tony scrambles to his feet, half of his helmet ripped off and he shoots two beams right at Thanos who blocks it with his gauntlet. Tony makes the beams harsher but Thanos just walks forward before he close enough to take a swing. His fist hits Tony in the side of the head so hard his helmet shatters. He brings his arm forward and Tony blocks it, cross armed, gritting his teeth, still in shock from the blows to the head. He shoves the titan’s arm away and throws a punch but the titan catches his fist and the grip tightens. Tony’s arm screams in pain and he bites his lip, glaring, dazed and hurting. He wills the last of his armor to go to a blade in his other hand, and he stabs it toward Thanos who simply moves away, making Tony miss, grabs his arm with the blade, breaks it off and-   
Oh God-  
Tony sees the blade come forward and he looks at it in fear, watching helplessly. It all happens so fast and Tony sucks in a breath as the blade comes forward. It sinks into his side and Tony feels it go all the way through his stomach and come out the other end.   
“NOOOOO!” He hears a scream from a ways away. It’s not his own, it’s Peter. It’s his son’s voice cracking and breaking, but still audible.   
Tony can’t breath. He looks down at the wound, only half of the blade visible, the other half plunged into his stomach.  
“TONY!” He hears Peter yell.   
Tony can’t- tears come to his eyes. His vision is so bright. He stumbles back, his legs shaking, his knees buckling beneath him, clutching Thanos’ arm and looking up at the titan’s smug face. He gulps air down that barely comes. He gasps, letting out gurgles of pain as the pain chokes anything he’s going to say. The titan walks him backward, towering over him, continuing to push the knife in further as Tony widens his eyes, unable to talk, overwhelmed by pain.   
“You have my respect Stark,” Thanos says, gripping his head. Tony’s hands fall to his side and he lays limp, propped up against a rock, half standing. He’s still gasping, taking shaky breaths, his face screwed up in pain.   
The titan grips the sides of his head, “When I’m done, half of humanity will still be alive.” He lets Tony go and Tony falls backward, gulping down screams of pain, trying to breath. The knife glints, and Tony’s hands, covered in blood, tremble, hovering over the stab wound but not actually touching it.   
“I hope they remember you,” Thanos says, and he actually sounds sincere. He raises the gauntlet. All 4 stones gleam. Tony closes his eyes. 

Peter gets to his feet and searches for Tony. He finds him, across the battlefield and his heart stops. The titan is punching him in the face, again and again-  
Peter jumps to his feet with energy he didn’t know he had and runs forward, sprinting as fast as he can at the titan. He hears something behind him and doesn’t turn. Get to Tony. Get to Tony. That purple jerk hurt his dad. Suddenly the breath is knocked out of him and he’s tackled to the ground by Quill who had caught up to him with his rocket boots and now Quill has grabbed him wrestling him down, shouting, “No Pete-”  
“Get off!” Peter sobs, trying to push him away. Because that’s Tony getting punched. That’s Tony letting out small cries of pain that Peter can hear. That’s his dad.   
“That’s Tony,” Peter sobs, fighting off Quill, “That’s my dad-”  
Quill won’t let up, holding Peter’s waist, “Pete stop- it’s Thanos you don’t understand- he’ll kill you-”  
Peter shouts in anger, still thrashing, and he watches through bleary eyes that are filled with tears. He sees Tony fight Thanos as Quill drags him behind a pile of rocks. They cover their heads as there is explosions, but Quill never lets Peter go. Peter scrambles out from behind the rocks, Quill still maintaining a firm grip on Peter’s arm, but allowing him to watch because he wants to see too. Peter cranes his neck, needing to see what’s going on, which only made him feel worse that he couldn’t do anything. He watches as Tony whips out a knife and stab at Thanos...and miss. Thanos catches the blade, twists it around and-  
Peter almost throws up. His heart stops. He can’t breath. Thanos shoves the blade right through Tony’s side; Peter can see it thrust all the way through and out the other end. It almost feels like he’s been stabbed himself and Peter goes limp against Quill and yells, “NOOOOO!” His scream is heartbroken and his voice cracks in horror. Tears stream down his face as he gasps for breath, “TONY!” Peter screams, sobbing and pushing against Quill who’s holding him firmly.   
“Quill let go- please let go- TONY!” Peter cries.  
Tony stumbles back and Thanos pushes the knife in deeper, causing Peter to let out a strangled yell of anger. Thanos and Tony can’t seem to hear him but Peter can hear everything they’re saying. Peter’s crying, but they’re angry tears- lines of fire down his cheeks. Quill’s face is tight and in shock, but his grip is still firm on Peter’s arms.  
Peter sees Thanos level the gauntlet and Peter can’t breathe again. The stones gleam and Peter mummers, “No, no, no-”   
Not Tony. Anyone but Tony. He can’t. Peter is ready to punch Quill in the face. Can he make it there in time? Can he lunge in front and take the blast? He would. For Tony he would. But he can’t seem to make his mind think fast enough or his legs to move because the stone is glowing even brighter now and Peter still hasn’t broken away. Tony slumps against the rock, his gaze on Thanos and Peter’s freaking out, in total panic, pure fear radiating through his body. One word goes through his head over and over and over and over:  
No, no, no, no, no, no, no-

“Stop.”  
Tony turns, still struggling to breathe and sees the Doctor sitting up.   
“Spare his life,” the wizard says, “And I will give you the stone.”  
“No tricks,” Thanos asks, almost threateningly.   
Tony’s breathing hard, watching. He groans, gasping in pain but he manages to choke out, “Don’t-”  
But the doctor has lifted his hand and pulled the stone out of thin air, holding the space around glowing gem like it’s surrounded by an invisible force. He lets it go and it flies forward on its own accord. Thanos lets it move right into his hand before he brings it toward the gauntlet. Tony watches in horror as the stone clicks in place, right on the thumb, and the ground trembles. Thanos lets out a roar, the stones gleaming. When he stops he grins in satisfaction.  
“One to go,” Thanos says breathlessly.  
Tony’s head jerks to the side as he hears Peter let out a yell of anger and his kid jolts away from Quill who had lowered his guard in shock. Turns out Quill had wrestled his kid down behind a rock, but now he saw Peter like a blur, surging forward. His kid had been watching the whole time and now Peter flings himself forward, looking ready to murder the titan.   
“No, Peter no-” Tony groans but he can’t stop his son.   
Peter shoots 6 webs, all at the titans face and goes in with his fists. Tony’s panicked, but he can’t move, paralyzed with pain, still struggling to breath. Thanos seems a lot bigger now, especially as he grabs Peter’s wrist and yanks him down effortlessly. Peter lets out a strangled scream as he hits the ground and then Thanos raises him. His son struggles, his mask receding to his neck so Thanos can see his glare and his angry tears as he’s lifted off the ground by his arm.   
Peter’s yelling, “I’m gonna kill you! I’ll kill you!”  
Thanos watches, slightly amused as Peter struggles, holding him like he’s a toy. His son is sobbing, kicking his legs and punching with his free hand. Thanos is staring at Tony who’s shaking his head, pleading almost.   
Tony struggles to sit up and he coughs, “No-”  
“He has heart. And recklessness. I like him,” Thanos admits grudgingly.  
“Put my kid down,” Tony gasps out, shaking. “Put him DOWN!”   
Thanos grins before he lifts Peter up more and punches him right in the chest, at the same time letting go of his arm. Peter lets out a strangled yell of pain, going flying, hitting the ground hard and tumbling to a stop somewhere out of sight.   
Tony lets out a low growl that turns into a whimper as pain tackles his voice, “You’ll pay for that.”  
“I will?” the titan asks cockily. He nods, “Goodbye Stark,” Thanos says, before he closes his fist and gets sucked into a portal, just as the ground erupts at the spot where he was. Quill lands, staggering with both guns raised, dazed but angry.  
“Where’d he go?” Quill screams, looking around, “Where is he?”  
Tony can’t breath and he raises his arm shakily, trying to patch up the armor around the wound.   
“Pete-” Tony chokes, his hands trembling as he looks around in fear, “Pete-”   
“Did we just lose?” Quill asks Mantis, Drax, and the blue lady who have limped towards them.   
“Peter!” Tony yells, still gasping against the rock, crying out in pain. Dr. Strange slumps against the ground next to him, a nasty cut on his head. Tony bites his lip so hard as he grips his side, trying to stand, struggling to get to his feet so he can run to his son. But now there’s a hand on his shoulder and it’s the wizard who puts his hand out, gripping Tony. Tony grabs his arm and looks up, gasping and gurgling blood, but he repeats, “Peter- get Pete-” Tony pleads.  
“I will,” the wizard promises, turning to go, but Tony grabs his arm again and looks up at him. He whispers, “Why would you do that?”   
He remembered what the wizard had said back when they first met. “But you have to understand if it comes to saving you, or the kid, or the Time Stone, I will not hesitate to let you die.” What made him change his mind?  
Doctor strange purses his lips, “We’re in the endgame now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big oofs...  
> Winding down on this one, then I'll go right into Part 3 which is just a general fic of what I think will happen in endgame. It's not accurate haha but I loved writing it and we get a lot of Tony and Peter feels. <3   
> Stay tuned! And find some tissues- some people might need them in the next chapters.


	5. I'm sorry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm so so so so sorry. Don't hate me. This is the last chapter of Part 2! Part 3 coming tomorrow which is Endgame!   
> This one hurts. I'm rly rly sorry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good luck.

Wanda runs over to Vision, grabbing his arm, “Are you ok?”  
She hears Steve speak to her left in a low voice, “Everyone on my position. We have incoming.”  
“Cap?” Wanda hears Bruce’s voice through the comms, “That’s him.”  
Wanda peers through the trees and sucks in a breath. A blue portal has opened up in the middle of the beautiful green forest and out steps a giant, an omen of death and destruction, armor covering his purple skin, his left hand covered in a yellow gauntlet. 5 stones glow from it. There’s one spot missing. The spot is for Vision’s stone.   
“Eyes up. Stay sharp.” Steve says. He leads the team forward, away from her and Vision.   
Wanda feels a lump in her throat. Don’t say it Vision. Please don’t. Wanda can’t bear to look at him and she squeezes her eyes shut, biting her lip. His hand finally grabs her arm and she jumps at his touch, meeting his eyes.   
“Wanda,” Vision says softly, nodding, “It’s time.”  
“No,” she says through gritted teeth, fighting back tears. She shakes her head violently, “No.”  
“They can’t stop him, Wanda, but we can,” Vision says, breathing hard. He grabs her hand again, turning her, “Look at me.” He holds her hand tight and looks up at her, “You have the power to destroy the stone.”  
“Don’t,” Wanda pleads.   
“You must do it, Wanda, please,” Vision begs.  
Her lower lip is trembling and he brings her hand to his cheek, taking a shaky breath.  
“We are, out, of time,” he says breathlessly.   
Wanda shakes her head, whispering, “I can’t.”  
“Yes, you can,” Vision says, nodding. His eyes lock with hers. Wanda’s trembling. This can’t be happening. For years she’s told herself it would never happen. And that if it did, she wouldn’t do it. But now that moment is here. And Vision moves her hand backward, leveling it with the infinity stone in his forehead. Her fingers are moving against their will and Wanda bites her lip, tears coming to her eyes.  
Vision’s voice is soft and gentle, “If he gets the stone, half the universe dies.”  
Wanda looks down at him, her hand shaking and she gulps down a sob, shaking her head again. She tries to form words, “Why-” but she can’t even breath. But now she finds herself stepping back, leveling her hand as Vision encourages her, his voice breaking.  
“It’s not fair,” he says, “It shouldn’t be you. But it is…” He lets go of her hand, but his arm is still extended as she backs up some more.   
“It’s alright,” Vision breaths, and now he’s shaking as well, “You could never hurt me.”  
Wanda’s lip is trembling again and she staggers a bit, tears falling down her cheeks.  
Vision locks eyes with her again, “I just feel you…”  
Wanda’s breathing speeds up and her mind is whirling. She wills her energy in her hand and there is a slight red glow from her palm. She begins to cry, biting her lip as she spreads out her fingers with a silent scream of pain, shooting a red beam at Vision’s stone. His cape flies back and he tenses, his mouth open in shock as her magic connects with the infinity stone.   
She can barely see his face; the light is so bright. Wanda’s taking shuddery breaths, tears streaming down her cheeks, her leg back, bracing her, keeping her from collapsing. What is she doing? Why is she doing it? Wanda feels her heart cracking just like the stone is. She hears her friends fighting Thanos one by one, and slowly their yells of determination fade and she hears small thuds as if they’ve been thrown aside. She turns and sees Groot jump in front of her, sinking his arms into the ground with a little roar and roost surge up towards the titan. They wrap around Thanos but he simply breaks them effortlessly and shoots a purple blast at the tree, sending him flying. Wanda bites her lip, blinking tears out of her eyes. She sees Steve get up and run at Thanos and she knows she has to make this count. There’s not a lot of time-  
She turns back around, still crying, her shoulders heaving and shoots another beam with her opposite hand, another red stream combining with the first one. Wanda’s crying, locking eyes with Vision, her ears ringing, tears streaming down her cheeks as she purses her lips, holding back a sob. Vision’s choking and he closes his eyes. Wanda cries harder, gasping as her hands shake. She hears Cap let out a long scream, his yell getting louder and louder until it’s finally cut off and Wanda turns, blinking tears away, her hair whipping over her shoulder. She sees Thanos walking toward her and she lets out a yell, pointing one of her hands at him and letting a stream loose. He puts up a shield but her force still blows him back a few feet, ripping up the ground. She keeps up the energy in both streams, arms outstretched. Thanos is slowly making his way toward her, shoving against her red energy. Wanda looks back at Vision who’s smiling at her, hiding the pain for her, encouraging her. He nods as much as he can but his eyes say it all.   
“It’s alright,” he says breathlessly. She can’t hear him over the sound of the energy shooting from her palms, the groans of the titan who’s getting closer and her own tears. Wanda takes a breath, crying out, squeezing her eyes shut for a second, strengthening her stream, her hand trembling.   
“It’s alright,” Vision says again.   
Wanda’s crying, tears sliding freely down her cheeks as she holds her breath, her lower lip trembling, her fingers outstretched to deliver the final blow.  
“I love you,” Vision mouths.   
Wanda sucks in a breath, widening her eyes as Vision closes his. She grits her teeth and lets out a sob as she sees yellow lines start to creep over Vision’s face, light breaking through each crack. Wanda lets out a scream and pulses as hard as she can.  
The stone lights up-  
And then it simply shatters into a million pieces.  
The infinity stone breaks apart, flying in all directions, along with Wanda’s heart.   
A huge explosion knocks her off her feet, blowing her backward and Wanda tumbles, her scream cut short. She hits the ground, sliding to a stop on her stomach and Wanda crumples, her head in her hands, still sobbing. She can’t look behind her at Vision’s broken body- she can’t.   
Wanda sees the titan approach her. She doesn’t even look up at him. But her tears are replaced with sudden anger. Kill me too, she thinks. Just get it over with.   
Instead he says, “I understand, my child. Better than anyone.”  
His voice is low and sad, like he actually cares, and is feeling her pain with her.   
Wanda looks up at him, hate in her eyes, her lip trembling and she hisses, “You could never.”  
“Today, I lost more than you can know,” he says, cupping her head with his hand as he walks next to her. Wanda’s gritting her teeth, still trying to steady her breathing. She can’t believe what she’s just done. But now Thanos has walked away from her and he says softly, “But now is no time to mourn.” She hears a noise and lifts her head, weakly looking behind her.  
Thanos is holding his gauntlet out, the green stone gleaming and he says softly, “Now is no time at all.”  
He turns the gauntlet and she watches as the leaves, grass and trees around her fly forward, returning to their positions before the blast. Then she looks behind Thanos and sees Vision, gasping on his knees, the stone still in tact. He locks eyes with her and her heart stops.  
Wanda scrambles to her feet, screaming, “No!”   
Thanos backhands her across the face and Wanda goes flying, her red magic stopping her from hitting a tree. She lands, head over heels, crumpling in the grass about 100 feet away. She’s trembling as she looks up and screams again as Thanos reaches forward, his hand with the gauntlet around Vision’s throat. She can’t breath as he digs the stone out of Vision’s head, denting his forehead, before yanking it out, the yellow stone gleaming in his hand. He pulls his hand away, revealing a hole in Vision’s head, with zapping wires. His eyes have gone dull, and the color is gone from Vision’s whole body, starting from his neck. Grey eats away at the beautiful red and gold and yellow that had once covered his body. He slumps in Thanos’ grasp, his feet dangling.  
Wanda takes a horrified breath.   
A feeling comes back to her.   
The same feeling she felt when Pietro died.   
A feeling she hoped to never feel again, yet here it was.   
Wanda lets out a long scream, falling to her knees, her energy obliterating everything around her.   
Half of her heart has not only been taken from her once…  
...but twice. 

Thor launches himself into the sky. He hears a loud roar from below about a mile away and shoots himself forward. He sees Thanos, his arms outstretched, tense, his veins glowing almost as brightly as the 6 infinity stones that are gleaming on the gauntlet. Thor lets out a roar and zaps him with as much lighting as he can muster, but he’s partially saving him strength. The titan gets blown backward before he looks up and his hateful gaze immediately finds Thor who’s shooting towards him. Thanos roars and closes his fist and points it in his direction, all 6 infinity stones combining their separate blasts into one beam that spirals towards him. Thor hurls the axe as hard as he can, electricity zapping through it as he spins toward the light. The beam and axe collide and Stormbreaker breaks through the stream, spiraling down and heading straight for Thanos. There’s a huge blast of light that blocks Thor’s vision for a couple seconds. There’s a huge rumble and the Earth shakes. Thor slams down on the ground, looking up as Thanos stumbles back. Thor storms towards him and grips the back of his head, pushing his other hand hard against the axe. He mercilessly crushes the blade into the chest of Thanos who gasps in pain as Thor grits his teeth, his nostrils flaring, letting the titan stumble back. Letting him be weak. Letting him feel pain for once. The pain he has inflicted on innocent people, Thor’s friends, his brother, Thor himself, and the innocent men, women, and children of the universe.   
Thor’s voice is angry but somehow calm as he hisses, “I told you: you’d die for that.”  
Thanos is gasping, breathing hard but he whispers, “You should have…” The titan gulps down a breath and his eyes flash. He repeats, “You should have gone for the head,” Thanos says in a raspy voice. Out of the corner of his eye, Thor sees his left hand raise with the gauntlet and before he can do anything the titan gives an unsettling grin.  
“NO!” Thor roars. 

Thanos snaps. 

Author’s note: Um hi. Don’t hate me please. This is gonna hurt. I have nothing to say. 

Thanos wakes up in a pool of orange. The gauntlet is gone- no longer on his hand. The last time he saw it it was burnt and steaming, its power exhausted for the most part. Still enough power to bring him here, zap him into a portal, letting the axe that had been buried into his chest fall behind. Thanos looks down and sees no wound in his chest.   
“What did you do?” Thor had roared at him.  
Thanos takes a breath and looks around. There is a building in front of him and a figure stands directly in the center. A small figure that he knows by name. The girl he saved, the girl he cared for, and the girl he killed because he loved her.   
“Daughter?” Thanos asked, surprised at how weak his voice is. Gamora turns when he gets close enough.  
“Did you do it?” she asks, and it seems like she’s on the verge of tears. Her fists are clenched, her mouth tight, her eyes narrowed. She’s a fierce little fighter. His little Gamora.   
Thanos can barely answer her. He looks at Gamora in shock and chokes out, “Yes.”  
Gamora takes a shay breath, as if expecting the dreaded answer. She blinks once, and then asks him another question. Her voice cracks, “What did it cost?”  
Thanos only knows one way to answer this question, “Everything.”

“Thor?” Cap asks. He runs over, looking at the stunned god who is staring at the empty ground where the titan had been. Thor makes eye contact with him.  
Cap can’t hide the fear in his voice. He asks, “Where’d he go?”  
Then he hears a voice behind him, “Steve?”  
Cap turns and sees Bucky walking towards him. Then his best friend looks at his hand that’s crumbling away into nothing. Bucky drops his gun and it clatters to the floor, his friend’s body dissolving into dust and falling into a pile on the ground. Steve can’t breath. He stumbles over in shock and with a shaky hand he touches the pile of dust, “Buck…”

Bucky felt something inside of him. Something wrong. Something awful.   
He felt his finger tingling and when he looked he saw it was fading away. He stumbles forward and says, “Steve?” He sounds more confused than scared. But Bucky was scared. He’s never been so scared. Scared of the unknown. What was happening to him? He looked up and saw that Steve had turned at the sound of his name. Bucky’s hand turned to dust. He drops his gun and tries to stagger forward but now his body is leaving him. The last thing he sees is Steve’s terrified face. And then he doesn’t see anything at all. 

“Up, General. Up!” T’challa commands, creeping over. He holds out his hand to help Okoye up from the ground.   
“This is no place to die,” he says. But as she grasps his arm and he starts to help her rise, T’challa feels something inside of him. Something wrong. Something awful. He doesn’t have time to say another word. His arm fades into dust, and with it, himself too. The Black Panther, the king of Wakanda, fades away. Fear creeps over him as he looks at his general’s terrified face as he turns to dust in front of her. That’s the last emotion he feels.  
And then he doesn’t feel anything at all. 

Okoye is struggling to get up and T’challa rounds the tree, commanding, “Up, General. Up! This is no place to die.” She grasps his arm but then there’s nothing there. She watches as her king turns to dust, falling back to the ground in horror and terror and looking at her hand, looking at the spot where T’challa had been standing. There’s nothing there. Just black flakes of dust drifting around in the wind. Tears stream down her cheeks as she starts to breath faster, her tears choking her voice.  
“My king,” she cries, “My king!”   
But she’s left staring a pile of ashes that slowly fall to the ground. 

“I am Groot?”   
Rocket turns, seeing Groot slumped against the tree. Rocket looks, fearful, and he stumbles forward, watching as Groot, his best friend, his son practically, is fading, the wind carrying every piece of the tree Rocket loved away.  
“Oh…” Rocket says, staggering forward, his hand out, “No, no, no! Groot…”  
The tree looks at him sadly and then is gone for good. Rocket crumples to his knees, “No…” Rocket’s eyes fill with tears and he sobs in his arms, grabbing the tree trunk Groot had been leaning against.  
He called him dad. 

Groot feels something inside him. Something wrong. Something awful. He’s seeing himself fade away, looking at his branches as they wither to dust. Rocket is in front of him and Groot whispers, “I am Groot.”   
Dad?  
He watches as Rocket stumbles forward to try and grab him, but there’s nothing left to grab. Groot feels sad he’ll never get to see his friends again. Or Rocket. He would have liked to play his game one last time. And see Quill and Drax and M-  
And then he doesn’t feel anything at all.

“Sam!” Rhodey calls, looking around for his best friend, terror locking up in his throat, “Sam, where you at?” Rhodey continues to look. He swears he landed here. Right here-  
Rhodey looks down and his breath his caught in his lungs. He crumples to his knees.  
Rhodey’s staring at a pile of dust. 

Wanda is crumpled, crying by Vision’s grey form. She looks and sees her hand fading away. Wanda feels something deep inside her. Something wrong. Something awful. It hurts more than Pierto. More than Vision. She looks down at the man she killed, the man she loved, the man she couldn’t protect. Maybe it was better this way, she thinks, I’m sorry Viz.  
She looks up into the sun as she feels herself turn to dust.   
What a beautiful thing, she thinks. Tears used to slide silently down her cheeks, but now they just drop to the ground. She feels her chest heat up.   
And then she doesn’t feel anything at all. 

“TONY!” Peter screams.  
Tony’s struggling to sit up against the rock and he staggers forward. Peter’s limping over with the help of Doctor Strange, not putting pressure on his left ankle.   
“Pete-” Tony gasps, and Peter surges forward, pushing away from Doctor Strange. He lunges for Tony, and Tony grabs him as he comes staggering forward.   
“Are you ok?” Tony says, holding his son firmly by the arms. Peter nods and falls into his chest, hugging him tight, careful of the stab wound. Tony’s on the verge of tears, still gasping for breath, closing his eyes and trying to take deep breaths. Peter’s ok, that’s all that matters. His kid is ok. Peter’s shaking, his head against Tony’s chest and Tony has one hand wrapped around his back, the other hand on the back of his head, holding him like he never wants to let go again.  
He chokes, “It’s ok kid. It’s...ok…”   
“Lie still Tony,” Dr. Strange says.   
Tony nods, gently pushing Peter off of him. He moves his hands away and looks at the awful cut. Peter’s eyes widen in horror and he glances at Tony with a fearful gaze. Quill gently places his hand on Peter’s shoulder.  
“I need to pull it out,” Strange says.  
“Do it,” Tony grits his teeth, “Pete don’t- you don’t have to look.”  
Peter’s looking at him with a frightened gaze and he nods violently, looking slightly off to the side.  
“I’m ok- I’m gonna be ok-” Tony says, trying to get his kid to stop trembling and keep him calm. Dr. Strange uses that as a distraction as he yanks the knife out.   
Tony lets out a strangled scream, breathing hard, his vision pixelating. Dr. Strange lets the knife clatter to the stone ground and he sighs, leaning back down on the rock. Peter limps to grab him as he starts to stumble and fall. His kid gives him support and Tony stays standing somehow, and Peter doesn’t let him go.   
“I’ve got you,” Peter says firmly.   
Tony feigns a small smile, “I got you first.”   
They all gather together, forming a little circle. Tony starts to patch up his suit and wound using his free hand, the other one draped around Peter.  
“How’s your ankle?” Tony asks, even though Peter's the one holding him up.  
“I’ll be ok,” Peter says weakly, “I’ll be ok.”  
Tony nods and squeezes his shoulder, able to take deeper breaths.   
Tony looks at the faces of all of his friends. Shock, horror, anger, sadness.   
He remembers what Quill had asked, “Did we just lose?”  
Yes, he thinks. We did.  
Then Mantis looks up. She looks rather fearful.  
“Something’s happening,” she says. And then the most awful thing happens. Mantis just fades away into dust, carried away by the wind.  
Tony looks at her in shock. Peter’s gripping Tony’s arm and he lets out a choked gasp.  
“Quill?” Drax asks, looking at Star Lord in shock.  
“No Drax no-” Quill says weakly, starting forward towards his friend, but there’s no one there. The dust falls to the ground.  
Tony looks at Quill who turns back around in horror. He locks eyes with his friend and steps forward, “Steady, Quill.”  
Star Lord’s face falls and he says, “Oh man.”

Quill felt something deep inside of him. Something wrong. Something awful. He saw Mantis and Drax, his two best friends, fade to dust in front of him. And he knows he’s next. He can feel it. What about Rocket and Groot- or did they turn to dust too? What about Tony and Peter-  
“Steady, Quill,” Tony says, stepping forward. There’s a strange look in his eyes.  
Tears come to Peter’s eyes as the kid looks at him, begging him not to, shaking his head violently. But Quill doesn’t have a choice. This was his fault. It was all his fault.   
“Oh man,” he says softly. He feels guilt as he looks at Tony and Peter, staring at him in shock. At least he’ll see Gamora again, he thinks.   
Then Quill doesn’t feel anything at all. 

“Tony.”  
Tony turns, hearing a voice behind him. It’s Dr. Strange, sitting up against the rock. His face is somehow straight, his voice calm.  
The doctor knows he’s next. He knows. Tony knows.  
“There was no other way,” the wizard says.   
What is that supposed to mean? Tony steps forward, about to ask, but then the doctor is gone.   
Gone.  
They’re all gone.  
Except for him and that blue girl and-  
Peter.  
Tony freezes. The universe spirals back to him. He’s staring at the pile of dust that was Dr. Strange, and he knows his kid is behind him. But there’s something not right. Tony has a weird feeling. He gulps, his breathing speeding up. It’s suddenly so quiet.  
Oh God. Please God no- no-  
“Mr. Stark?”

Peter watched Mantis turn to dust.   
He watched Drax turn to dust.   
He watched Quill turn to dust.   
And he was about to watch Dr. Strange turn to dust, but then Peter froze. He felt something deep inside of him. Very, very slow, like rising water, but there. Something wrong. Something awful.  
He looks down at his hands. His suit is starting to crack up, like dry ground. Peter’s throat closes in panic. There’s a lump in his throat and a knot in his stomach. He feels like he’s going to throw up. Tony’s back is to him and when Peter looks up, the wizard is already gone.  
“Mr. Stark?” Peter says, “Tony I- I-”  
Tony turns, fear in his eyes and Peter hugs his stomach, “I don’t feel so good.”  
He stumbles towards Tony who’s already surging forward.   
Tony chokes, “You’re alright.”  
“I don’t...I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t know...I-” He staggers forward, his ankle giving out and he collapses into Tony’s arms. He hugs him hard, panic rising in his chest and he buries his face into Tony’s shoulder, sobbing, “I don’t want to go. I don’t want to go- sir please.” His arms are tight around Tony and he can already see dust flying up from them. No, no ,no-   
Peter wants to go home. He wants to go to school. He wants to see May again. He wants to have more time with Tony.  
“Please, I don’t want to go,” Peter sobs, shaking his head against Tony’s shoulder as they stumble, “I don’t want to go-”  
Tony tries to support him but now Peter can’t put weight on his ankle and they both fall, Peter slamming into the ground. His back hits the stone hard but it doesn’t hurt. Nothing hurts. That’s the problem. Peter can’t feel anything.   
“Tony what’s happening to me?” Peter tries to say, but his voice won’t work.  
“Tony I love you,” Peter tries to say, but no words come out, “I love you dad.” Still nothing. Just him gasping, gripping Tony’s arms, so scared. So scared. So scared…  
Is this what dying feels like?   
Peter’s eyes are filled with tears and he looks up at Tony who is breathing hard, still gripping his shoulders, too in shock to say anything. Tony’s eyes are filled with fear, anger, shock, terror, regret, guilt, pain, sadness-   
Peter doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know what to say. He locks eyes with Tony, gasping for breath, sobs tackling his intake of air. I’m so sorry dad.   
“I’m sorry,” Peter says softly.   
He looks away.   
He just wishes he had more time.  
He’s gonna miss Tony so much. So much...  
And then Peter fades, tears sliding down his cheeks and dropping into a pile of dust.

“Mr. Stark?” Tony hears. He turns, with wide and fearful eyes, his head snapping to look toward Peter who’s hugging his stomach.  
“Tony I- I, I don’t feel so good,” Peter says weakly, looking at him in horror.   
Tony shakes his head, “You’re alright.”  
“I don’t...I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t know...I-” Peter staggers forward, and Tony surges for him. Peter’s ankle gives out on him and he falls into Tony’s arms, who catches him. Tony’s in shock, hugging him hard. He looks down at his son’s back, his suit is already flaking, cracking, breaking off into dust and getting dragged away by the wind. It’s sucking his son from his embrace and Tony feels tears come to his eyes as he stumbles with Pete, holding him tighter.  
“I don’t want to go. I don’t want to go- sir please,” Peter sobs in his shoulder, “I don’t want to go, I don’t want to go.”  
Peter’s ankle gives out and he lets out a little whimper. Tony can’t keep him upright and pain flares in his side. He and Peter fall to the ground and he looks at his kid, crouched over him, his throat choked up. He can’t talk, but he doesn’t know what to say if he could. He can’t breath. Tony doesn’t know what to do. Peter looks so scared, so scared…  
This can’t be happening. Tony can’t let it happen. His life with Peter flashes before his eyes, going from when he first met the kid- that scared little teenager from Queens who had homework, to the kid who stowed away on a spaceship and was so brave and so innocent and so pure and...fading right in front of Tony’s eyes. He remembers making Peter smile and laugh, he remembered the many nights of Star Wars or Trek with ice cream, when ‘the kid’ turned to ‘my kid’ and ‘my kid’ turned to ‘son’. He remembered every single father son moment they had, every time he had protected Peter, and every time Peter had protected him. Tony fixed things. He fixed things. Why couldn’t he fix this? Why couldn’t he stop this horrible thing from happening? Not Peter, Tony begged. Please not Pete. Not my boy. Anyone but Peter- please…  
There’s a lump in Tony’s throat and a massive knot in his stomach. His side doesn’t even hurt anymore or maybe that’s just because he can’t feel it. He’s too much in shock, gripping his son tight. Peter locks eyes with him, tears forming in his son’s gaze and his mouth tries to form words. Tony barely hears the last thing Peter says.  
“I’m sorry.”  
And then Peter looks away.   
Tony doesn’t register the words, he can barely hear him, He’s just staring in shock at Peter and he grabs his shoulders harder as they crumble beneath him and he’s breathing hard.  
No, no, no, no, no-  
Say something Tony! Save him!   
Tony can’t say anything. He choked on his words.   
Not Pete...oh God-  
Tony can only watch helplessly as Peter turns to dust and he falls forward as his son dissolves beneath him, his body replaced with dust, his beautiful eyes swirling away, his clenched hands letting go of Tony’s shoulders, his suit crumbling into the wind.   
Tony lets out a strangled gasp, falling forward as his forearms hit the ground now that Peter is no longer beneath them. He’s shaking, gasping for air again, trying to breath, in complete shock. Tony sits up on his side and rubs his hands, watching with tear filled eyes and a shocked gaze as tiny bits of dust falls from his hands. His hands…  
Tony waits for the feeling...he waits and waits. He looks at his hands, waiting for them to dissolve in front of his eyes. Wanting them to turn to dust. He’s waiting to see the flakes of dust rise up and slowly drag him into the wind...But they never do.   
And then the horror sinks in.   
Tony grips his shaking left hand and puts it against his chest, gripping it hard with his nails trying to cause more pain to ground himself. He bites his lip so hard he tastes blood, but still the pain won’t come. Tony takes a shuddery breath, looking down, weak and defeated, closing his eyes.   
“He did it,” the blue lady says sadly. She sounds shocked and Tony doesn’t even glance to look at her. She hasn’t turned to dust either which means Tony’s not alone on this planet, but he sure feels like it. He feels empty without Peter. Incomplete. A failure. Oh God- Peter...  
Tony looks at the spot where he son had been and everything hits him at once, making his head spin. Tony reaches for the dust with shaking hands. He can’t bear to actually touch it.   
Tony can’t breath.   
Tony can’t think.  
Tony can’t...he doesn’t even know. He doesn’t even know...  
He can only stare, shaking, at the dust that scatters the ground in front of him. Peter was gone.  
Oh God.

“What is this?”  
“What the heck is happening?”  
“Where did they all go?”  
Cap sinks to the ground, by the pile of dust, holding his head.   
“Cap-” Bruce says in a broken voice.  
He looks up, looking around at the last of his friends that make a circle around him, looking down, looking in shock, looking in horror. He can’t focus. What just happened? What awful thing just happened?  
“Oh God,” is all he can say.   
And no one says anything else.  
Silence and despair floats over them like a cloud.   
They just stare.   
Stare at the dust.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ouch. Ouch ouch ouch. Leave your thoughts below :(


End file.
